Sunday, December 9, 2012
To Walk a Mile in Another Person's Shoes
“When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you don't blame the lettuce. You look for reasons it is not doing well. It may need fertilizer, or more water, or less sun. You never blame the lettuce. Yet if we have problems with our friends or family, we blame the other person. But if we know how to take care of them, they will grow well, like the lettuce..."
― Thich Nhat Hanh
Hey all! Long time, no write. I know the majority of people are studying for finals right now, so good luck to everyone!
Anyways, I was going over some Social Psych stuff with peeps yesterday, and one of the things that really stuck out to me was this thing called the Fundamental Attribution Error. The best way to understand it is through examples...
Think of a golf ball. What causes a golf ball to roll? The most obvious feature is that the ball is round. While this is true, if the golf ball is on a flat surface, it wouldn't roll. You also need some kind of push or force to get the ball to roll. Thus, it's both the force and the shape that get the ball rolling.
The basis of the Fundamental Attribution Error is that humans are like golf balls: they both have some kind of disposition and are acted on by external forces that lead to the results. In other words, it is not only the disposition of the person, but the situation that they are in that leads to the resulting behavior. Let's say that you are walking by and you see a man named Chris kick a dog. It would be natural to assume that Chris is just a mean person. Yet, if you knew the situation he was in, such as the dog was biting him, then you might think it's reasonable Chris acted the way he did.
Essentially, the Fundamental Attribution Error states that outside observers tend to disregard the situation one is in, thus incorrectly leading the observer to assume that a person's behavior is a direct result of the disposition. Using the example before, it means we would assume Chris is just a jerkface rather than understanding the circumstances behind the actions (in this case, the dog biting him).
This also goes back to the "Elevators, Etiquette, and Empathy" post I wrote before... If you see what appears to be a healthy person getting on the elevator to travel only one floor, it's natural to assume that the person is lazy. To fit it to the model, we would think there are no mitigating circumstances (or situation), and thus the behavior (riding the elevator for one floor) directly reflects their disposition (we think they're lazy). But, now imagine that the person has knee troubles, resulting in extreme pain to climb up any flight of stairs. Now, the resulting behavior (taking the elevator one floor) wouldn't really say anything about their disposition, for we know that the situation they're in (extreme knee pain) is probably the reason why they're taking the elevator.
Even though conceptually it may make sense, and thus be easy to avoid, it's amazing how often we commit the Fundamental Attribution Error... Like the quote from Thich Nhat Hanh above, whenever we have trouble with anyone, not just friends or family, we naturally assume that there's something wrong or rude about that person.
Why is to so unnatural for us to look at what's going on in a person's life rather than just labeling them? Well, simply because it takes effort to do so... You see, the paradox is that humans like to know everything, but we're also cognitive misers. In other words, we like to think we have answers to everything, but we'd rather not expend energy to truly find out if what we know is correct. It's much easier to see someone and label them rather than think about why they do what they do. And yet, we still like to think that we are right. I mean, who likes to admit that they're wrong or that they don't know? It's just something so foreign and unnatural to us...
Anyways, the big idea of this post is that it's Finals week, so we know that every student is most likely going through major stress right now. For weeks like this, we all have an idea of the situation others are experiencing. But how about every other week? How often do we understand another's behavior as being a result of homework, midterms, or even familial problems? The thing is, we all know these things are happening. Yet, we tend only to see it as why we ourselves may act rude or apathetic some days. For everyone else, we may naturally assume that being rude is just how they are. Of course, this is less true for friends than people we may just meet or greet, but it can still apply.
Regardless, sometimes it's not best to trust the automatic reasons or assumptions we have of others. Like Atticus said, sometimes it helps to walk a mile in another person's shoes in order to understand where they're coming from. Even though it may sound dumb, please remember that others are stressed and have problems, also. It's all too easy to acknowledge that someone exists but to forget that they're human, too, ya know? And with that, I shall bid you adieu, and the best of luck with finals!
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Eat! Eat and Forget, Yeah!
Hey all! I hope everyone is surviving in this heat. I guess it wouldn't really be summer without that one week of crazy high temperatures. Air conditioning has definitely become one of my best friends recently.
Anyways, since it's been so hot outside, I've been staying inside and enjoying one of my favorite pastimes: eating. It's weird, but eating is something I enjoy quite a bit, but not something I ever really pay much attention to. I'll eat and enjoy good food, sure, but it's more of an automatic process than anything.
I mean, how many people really pay attention to the food in front of them when they're watching TV? It's more like you keep on watching and happen to pay attention when it goes to commercial, which is usually a good excuse for grabbing more food. Wansink, Painter, and North (http://www.nature.com/oby/journal/v13/n1/abs/oby200512a.html) happened to note this, and thus they decided to run a little experiment on it...
It was all quite simple, really... People come in and get to watch a television program. Better yet, they even get a free bowl of soup to go along with the program. Pretty nice experiment, huh?
Well, of course, it is an experiment, so there had to be something going on behind the scenes. Or in this case, underneath the table (but not like that!). The experimenters actually rigged some of the soup bowls so that they were automatically refilling. So, even if a whole bowl's worth of soup was consumed, it would look like only a 1/4 or a 1/2 would be gone. Trippy, eh?
What did they find? Well, the most surprising thing is that no one really caught on to the gimmick... In fact, the results showed that those who drank from the refilling soup bowl thought that they only drank so much as the bowl was drained. In other words, they believed they had only consumed 1/4 to 1/2 the bowl, even if they drank a whole bowl's worth. This means that, on average, those who had the automatically refilling bowl not only objectively consumed more than those who didn't have a bowl that automatically refilled (about 73% more!), but they only felt as satiated as they perceived they consumed. In other words, those that had the automatically refilling bowl only felt as full as they believed (key word!) they had consumed, which was about 1/4 to 1/2 of the bowl, even if they had objectively consumed a whole bowl's worth.
So, in other words, people were only as satiated as they believe they had eaten. That, I believe, is very odd... This means that we may eat more with our eyes than our stomachs... The researchers hypothesized that this concept may be more associated with the American way of eating, where the emphasis is on eating quickly and preventing any food from being wasted. Researchers contrasted this style to the French, where the emphasis is on enjoying the food. The French tend to eat longer (about an hour or so per meal), and they also tend to stop eating when they feel full, not when they have more food left on their plate. So, this American emphasis on efficiency may be part of the reason why we judge with our eyes rather than our stomachs. It's odd to think that something as simple as what we see can affect something we believe is objective as satiety. Then again, part of the fun of psychology is learning that we aren't as objective as we think they are, eh? Oh well, just some "food" for thought hahaha. Yeahhh, last time I'll be using that joke...
Anyways, since it's been so hot outside, I've been staying inside and enjoying one of my favorite pastimes: eating. It's weird, but eating is something I enjoy quite a bit, but not something I ever really pay much attention to. I'll eat and enjoy good food, sure, but it's more of an automatic process than anything.
I mean, how many people really pay attention to the food in front of them when they're watching TV? It's more like you keep on watching and happen to pay attention when it goes to commercial, which is usually a good excuse for grabbing more food. Wansink, Painter, and North (http://www.nature.com/oby/journal/v13/n1/abs/oby200512a.html) happened to note this, and thus they decided to run a little experiment on it...
It was all quite simple, really... People come in and get to watch a television program. Better yet, they even get a free bowl of soup to go along with the program. Pretty nice experiment, huh?
Well, of course, it is an experiment, so there had to be something going on behind the scenes. Or in this case, underneath the table (but not like that!). The experimenters actually rigged some of the soup bowls so that they were automatically refilling. So, even if a whole bowl's worth of soup was consumed, it would look like only a 1/4 or a 1/2 would be gone. Trippy, eh?
What did they find? Well, the most surprising thing is that no one really caught on to the gimmick... In fact, the results showed that those who drank from the refilling soup bowl thought that they only drank so much as the bowl was drained. In other words, they believed they had only consumed 1/4 to 1/2 the bowl, even if they drank a whole bowl's worth. This means that, on average, those who had the automatically refilling bowl not only objectively consumed more than those who didn't have a bowl that automatically refilled (about 73% more!), but they only felt as satiated as they perceived they consumed. In other words, those that had the automatically refilling bowl only felt as full as they believed (key word!) they had consumed, which was about 1/4 to 1/2 of the bowl, even if they had objectively consumed a whole bowl's worth.
So, in other words, people were only as satiated as they believe they had eaten. That, I believe, is very odd... This means that we may eat more with our eyes than our stomachs... The researchers hypothesized that this concept may be more associated with the American way of eating, where the emphasis is on eating quickly and preventing any food from being wasted. Researchers contrasted this style to the French, where the emphasis is on enjoying the food. The French tend to eat longer (about an hour or so per meal), and they also tend to stop eating when they feel full, not when they have more food left on their plate. So, this American emphasis on efficiency may be part of the reason why we judge with our eyes rather than our stomachs. It's odd to think that something as simple as what we see can affect something we believe is objective as satiety. Then again, part of the fun of psychology is learning that we aren't as objective as we think they are, eh? Oh well, just some "food" for thought hahaha. Yeahhh, last time I'll be using that joke...
Sunday, July 22, 2012
What's In a Name...
Hey all! I know summer's a good time for relaxing and all, but lots of studying for other tests (GRE, MCAT, and LSAT, anyone?) has been going on. That reminds me that I should start studying for the GRE myself. But before that, I'm also reminded of (another) psych experiment...
Most people know the stereotypes associated with math performance. According to popular belief, Asians are good at math, but women are bad at it... But, how well do Asian girls do? This was one of the questions that Shih, Pittinsky, and Ambady (1999) raised (http://pss.sagepub.com/content/10/1/80.short).
You see, other experiments have shown that stereotype activation has an effect on performance. Studies have shown that if people are made aware of the stereotypes associated with their characteristics, they'll perform in ways that fit with those stereotypes. For example, when White and Black students took a test that was "diagnostic of their abilities," Black students scored lower than White students, which is consistent with the stereotype. Yet, if the test was passed as non-diagnostic (the researchers said that they wanted to see how people solved tough verbal problems), there was no significant difference in the scores of White and Black students. This is huge because it shows that just even being aware of certain stereotypes can affect one's performance...
So, back to the original study. All the participants were female Asian college students. The three conditions were female-identity-salient condition, Asian-identity-salient condition, and no-identity-salient condition (the control). In each condition, participants had to fill out a survey asking about residential life at their university. What changed in each condition is that the survey's questions differed for each. In other words, for the female-identity-salient condition, participants had to indicate their gender and answer questions related to it. The same idea essentially applies to the Asian-identity-salient condition. As for the no-identity-salient, participants filled out questions that were about residential life but specifically avoided ethnic or gender identity. After the survey, all participants took a math test.
For ease of explanation, let's just say that the participants in the no-identity-salient condition scored what others score on average. In other words, the control condition is like the anchor of which the scores for the two other conditions are judged/based off of. Some of you may have guessed already, but participants in the gender-salient-identity condition, on average, scored significantly lower than those in the no-identity-salient condition. In other words, Asian females made aware of their gender tended to score lower than those who did not have their gender or ethnicity mentally reinforced. Also, participants in the Asian-identity-salient condition, on average, scored significantly higher than those in the no-identity-salient condition. In other words, Asian females made aware of their ethnicity tender to score higher than those who did not have their gender or ethnicity mentally reinforced.
This is not only quite amazing but disturbing as well. Sex and ethnicity are two factors that are very innate and are (arguably) difficult to change. Yet, such concrete factors can have a significant effect upon performance, as witnessed by the previous experiment. Is there any hope? Or are those that fit stereotypes doomed to fulfill them..?
Actually, the experiment already proposes a simple solution: don't make people aware. It may sound overly simple, but the control seemed to be balanced between the two other conditions, suggesting that it may be the most balanced. Thus, if people didn't have their gender or ethnicity reinforced, tests may be a more accurate measure of the test taker's innate ability.
Of course, you may think that reinforcement like the surveys found in this experiment ever happen on tests. So, it shouldn't be a problem in real world testing. Oh, if it was only the case... You see, apparently, my Social Psych Laboratory teacher Dr. Goff was telling us that even writing one's ethnicity and/or gender has enough of an effect. In other words, simply writing "Black" at the top of a test has been linked to Black students scoring lower on tests. In fact, Goff was telling us that this was really big for the GREs, and the makers of the GRE were/are being sued for refusing to add questions about ethnicity to the end of the test rather than the beginning.
So, there you go... If something as simple such as writing one's ethinicity or gender can cause a significant difference in test scores, it makes me wonder how accurate the statistics reported that have measures of intelligence for each ethnicity truly is. Of course, people could say that it could be helpful for certain groups like Asians, for if Asian identity was reinforced, Asians may score higher on average than if they had no identity reinforcement (just like the experiment). Yet, is it really ethical for a group of people to have an advantage over others just because of such a concrete factors as ethnicity? And are there more positive or negative stereotypes related to race in general..? Just some stuff to think about, I guess... Anyways, keep on enjoying summer, everyone!
Most people know the stereotypes associated with math performance. According to popular belief, Asians are good at math, but women are bad at it... But, how well do Asian girls do? This was one of the questions that Shih, Pittinsky, and Ambady (1999) raised (http://pss.sagepub.com/content/10/1/80.short).
You see, other experiments have shown that stereotype activation has an effect on performance. Studies have shown that if people are made aware of the stereotypes associated with their characteristics, they'll perform in ways that fit with those stereotypes. For example, when White and Black students took a test that was "diagnostic of their abilities," Black students scored lower than White students, which is consistent with the stereotype. Yet, if the test was passed as non-diagnostic (the researchers said that they wanted to see how people solved tough verbal problems), there was no significant difference in the scores of White and Black students. This is huge because it shows that just even being aware of certain stereotypes can affect one's performance...
So, back to the original study. All the participants were female Asian college students. The three conditions were female-identity-salient condition, Asian-identity-salient condition, and no-identity-salient condition (the control). In each condition, participants had to fill out a survey asking about residential life at their university. What changed in each condition is that the survey's questions differed for each. In other words, for the female-identity-salient condition, participants had to indicate their gender and answer questions related to it. The same idea essentially applies to the Asian-identity-salient condition. As for the no-identity-salient, participants filled out questions that were about residential life but specifically avoided ethnic or gender identity. After the survey, all participants took a math test.
For ease of explanation, let's just say that the participants in the no-identity-salient condition scored what others score on average. In other words, the control condition is like the anchor of which the scores for the two other conditions are judged/based off of. Some of you may have guessed already, but participants in the gender-salient-identity condition, on average, scored significantly lower than those in the no-identity-salient condition. In other words, Asian females made aware of their gender tended to score lower than those who did not have their gender or ethnicity mentally reinforced. Also, participants in the Asian-identity-salient condition, on average, scored significantly higher than those in the no-identity-salient condition. In other words, Asian females made aware of their ethnicity tender to score higher than those who did not have their gender or ethnicity mentally reinforced.
This is not only quite amazing but disturbing as well. Sex and ethnicity are two factors that are very innate and are (arguably) difficult to change. Yet, such concrete factors can have a significant effect upon performance, as witnessed by the previous experiment. Is there any hope? Or are those that fit stereotypes doomed to fulfill them..?
Actually, the experiment already proposes a simple solution: don't make people aware. It may sound overly simple, but the control seemed to be balanced between the two other conditions, suggesting that it may be the most balanced. Thus, if people didn't have their gender or ethnicity reinforced, tests may be a more accurate measure of the test taker's innate ability.
Of course, you may think that reinforcement like the surveys found in this experiment ever happen on tests. So, it shouldn't be a problem in real world testing. Oh, if it was only the case... You see, apparently, my Social Psych Laboratory teacher Dr. Goff was telling us that even writing one's ethnicity and/or gender has enough of an effect. In other words, simply writing "Black" at the top of a test has been linked to Black students scoring lower on tests. In fact, Goff was telling us that this was really big for the GREs, and the makers of the GRE were/are being sued for refusing to add questions about ethnicity to the end of the test rather than the beginning.
So, there you go... If something as simple such as writing one's ethinicity or gender can cause a significant difference in test scores, it makes me wonder how accurate the statistics reported that have measures of intelligence for each ethnicity truly is. Of course, people could say that it could be helpful for certain groups like Asians, for if Asian identity was reinforced, Asians may score higher on average than if they had no identity reinforcement (just like the experiment). Yet, is it really ethical for a group of people to have an advantage over others just because of such a concrete factors as ethnicity? And are there more positive or negative stereotypes related to race in general..? Just some stuff to think about, I guess... Anyways, keep on enjoying summer, everyone!
Sunday, July 15, 2012
I Think Old, Therefore I Walk Slowly
Hey all! I hope everyone is enjoying summer. I know I definitely haven't relaxed this much in a really long time... Well, that's what summer is for, right?
Anyways, I was talking to my brother Dave recently, and one of the things that he was talking about was Daniel Kahneman's book Thinking Fast and Slow. From what I remember, the book talks about two different systems in terms of processing... I might write more about other stuff later, but one of the things that stood out to me most is what Kahneman labelled as "The Florida Effect."
This effect goes back to an experiment done by Bargh, Chen, and Burrows (1996). The researchers told participants that the experiment was to test language proficiency. Participants had to form sentences of four words out of five given words. The participants had to do this about thirty times. After this, the participants were thanked for their time and the experiment was finished. Or, that's what the participants thought at least...
You see, the two conditions of the experiment were an elderly prime condition and an age neutral condition. For a basic refresher, priming refers to the idea of getting someone to mentally process a certain theme or set of words. In this experiment with the elderly prime, participants had to do the sentence forming task with four out of the five words. The way the priming worked is that all the words participants in the elderly condition had for forming sentences were associated with the elderly, such as Florida, old, lonely, grey, wise, etc. For the control condition, words such as thirsty, clean, private, etc. were used.
So, what's the point? The experimenters didn't care about any of the sentences formed by the participants. It's quite ingenious, but experimenters wanted to see how long it took for participants to walk to the elevator after they had left the room the experiment was held in. This may sound odd, but the crazy thing is that differences were found... Participants in the elderly prime condition walked significantly slower to the elevator than the participants in the control condition.
Part of the craziness is that none of the words in the elderly prime condition had anything to do with slowness (something that the experimenters made sure of). Yet, participants were still shown to walk at a significantly different pace... The researchers concluded that whether or not the participants were aware of it, participants had mentally activated an 'elderly' stereotype. One of the associations with elderly folk is older people tend to walk slower. Thus, activation of the stereotype resulted in behavior consistent with the stereotype and its associations, hence the participants walking slower.
One of my teachers said that some of the craziest experiments are the one with the smallest of manipulations... This experiment is one of these cases, and that's why it's so mind blowing to me... It's crazy to think that something so small as just forming sentences with words associated with the elderly can lead you to acting like what you think the elderly are like, as well... Of course, in an experimental setting, the results seem clear-cut. Yet, how many times in a real life setting are we fully aware of all the other associations or themes we are dealing with? I guess the root of it all is that outside influences can affect us in ways that we aren't even aware of... Like other social psych experiments have shown, we may not be as objective and free of outside influences as we like to think... Perhaps if we're having trouble dealing with a situation, it may be good to take a step back and just take a breather to try and refresh our look at it, no? Anyways, I think that's good for now... I shall be back at it soon enough!
Anyways, I was talking to my brother Dave recently, and one of the things that he was talking about was Daniel Kahneman's book Thinking Fast and Slow. From what I remember, the book talks about two different systems in terms of processing... I might write more about other stuff later, but one of the things that stood out to me most is what Kahneman labelled as "The Florida Effect."
This effect goes back to an experiment done by Bargh, Chen, and Burrows (1996). The researchers told participants that the experiment was to test language proficiency. Participants had to form sentences of four words out of five given words. The participants had to do this about thirty times. After this, the participants were thanked for their time and the experiment was finished. Or, that's what the participants thought at least...
You see, the two conditions of the experiment were an elderly prime condition and an age neutral condition. For a basic refresher, priming refers to the idea of getting someone to mentally process a certain theme or set of words. In this experiment with the elderly prime, participants had to do the sentence forming task with four out of the five words. The way the priming worked is that all the words participants in the elderly condition had for forming sentences were associated with the elderly, such as Florida, old, lonely, grey, wise, etc. For the control condition, words such as thirsty, clean, private, etc. were used.
So, what's the point? The experimenters didn't care about any of the sentences formed by the participants. It's quite ingenious, but experimenters wanted to see how long it took for participants to walk to the elevator after they had left the room the experiment was held in. This may sound odd, but the crazy thing is that differences were found... Participants in the elderly prime condition walked significantly slower to the elevator than the participants in the control condition.
Part of the craziness is that none of the words in the elderly prime condition had anything to do with slowness (something that the experimenters made sure of). Yet, participants were still shown to walk at a significantly different pace... The researchers concluded that whether or not the participants were aware of it, participants had mentally activated an 'elderly' stereotype. One of the associations with elderly folk is older people tend to walk slower. Thus, activation of the stereotype resulted in behavior consistent with the stereotype and its associations, hence the participants walking slower.
One of my teachers said that some of the craziest experiments are the one with the smallest of manipulations... This experiment is one of these cases, and that's why it's so mind blowing to me... It's crazy to think that something so small as just forming sentences with words associated with the elderly can lead you to acting like what you think the elderly are like, as well... Of course, in an experimental setting, the results seem clear-cut. Yet, how many times in a real life setting are we fully aware of all the other associations or themes we are dealing with? I guess the root of it all is that outside influences can affect us in ways that we aren't even aware of... Like other social psych experiments have shown, we may not be as objective and free of outside influences as we like to think... Perhaps if we're having trouble dealing with a situation, it may be good to take a step back and just take a breather to try and refresh our look at it, no? Anyways, I think that's good for now... I shall be back at it soon enough!
Thursday, June 28, 2012
You Just Have To Believe!!
Hey all! What's this, two posts within one week? Madness, I know, but I guess that's what happens when I get stuck in summer/work limbo...
Anyways, like most posts I write nowadays, this one starts with a story... Quite a few decades back, there was a psychologist named Rosenthal who was interested in studying the power of beliefs. Anyways, Rosenthal was able to conduct an experiment on a group of elementary students. He started by giving them an IQ test, just to start off. After doing his testing, he let the teachers know that some of the students, even though they may not show it at the time, are 'late bloomers,' or students who are going to do very well in the future.
The school year goes by, and Rosenthal decides to administer another IQ test to see if there were any changes. Well, the majority of the students had about a four point increase in their IQ, which is pretty normal. Yet, amazingly, as Rosenthal had predicted, those that were designated as 'late bloomers' gained, on average, about fifteen points.
So, what was the secret? How did Rosenthal know that some students would do so well? Simply put, he didn't, which is why this experiment is so amazing. You see, all of the students Rosenthal had labelled as 'late bloomers' were students that he randomly selected; there was nothing more to it than that. Yet, such a drastic difference came about due to something people simply believed. That couldn't hold for other situations, right?
Well, when Rosenthal first published this experiment (after he finally found a journal willing to publish it...), people refused to believe him. In fact, one experimenter, willing to discredit Rosenthal's results, agreed to work with Rosenthal to try and test this again, but with rats this time. So, a little bit different of an experiment, but it was essentially the same idea... Graduate students were given rats, yet some graduate students were told that they had received 'maze bright' rats. Again, the genius of this experiment was that there was no real difference between the rats; everything was purely random. Yet, similar to the results from the previous experiment, the rats that were labelled as 'maze bright' ended up running a maze faster and what not. So, even in a situation with rats, this same phenomenon seems to be present... Madness!
So, many of you have probably heard of the term before, but this phenomenon was labelled a self-fulfilling prophecy. The definition, according to Lieberman's lecture, is "when an originally false social belief leads to its own fulfillment." As you can see in the previous experiments, the false social belief was that the students/rats were different than everyone else when they should have been the same as everyone else. Yet, simply because the teachers believed that their rat/child was special, they did end up becoming special...
There have been other cases where the powers of a self-fulfilling prophecy have held true... The most devastating example is Black Wednesday of 1932 (another example from Lieberman's lecture), when a person wondered out loud if a bank was closing due to what appeared to be a large number of people making withdrawals... People heard this, started to fear that they would lose their money in the bank, and thus withdrew their money. Well, as you can guess, so many people ended up withdrawing their money that the bank did end up closing, leading to an ironic end...
So yes, self-fulfilling prophecies can be quite powerful in both positive and negative aspects. But, they can get really dangerous when they create a self-reinforcing cycle. For example, let's say that a person believes that no one else really likes them. This belief then leads them to be depressed or have poor social interactions with others, thus leading to others avoiding interacting with that person. The person starts to see that this is the case, and thus their self-fulfilling prophecy that no one really likes them is reinforced. In fact, this may lead to an even stronger belief in this prophecy, leading to even worse social interactions, and thus reinforcing the cycle continuously. I didn't explain that very well, but hopefully y'all understand...
I guess the big idea is that what we believe has a very strong effect on what can happen... It sounds weird, but as you can see from the experiments, there is some effect... Part of the way it works is also that if you have a self-fulfilling prophecy, then you start to look for things to confirm your prophecy, even if the evidence isn't really there/a misconstrual (something that psychologists tend to refer to as confirmation bias). In other words, sometimes people only see what they want to see... So, I guess it shows the importance of realizing how much we believe may affect possibly all aspects of our lives. It may be good to have others to keep us (and our beliefs) in check every now and then, no? The more I look into social psychology, the more it seems that we can't really trust ourselves/think we're truly objective, non-bias observers... Just something good to realize, I guess... Oh well, catch y'all next time!
Anyways, like most posts I write nowadays, this one starts with a story... Quite a few decades back, there was a psychologist named Rosenthal who was interested in studying the power of beliefs. Anyways, Rosenthal was able to conduct an experiment on a group of elementary students. He started by giving them an IQ test, just to start off. After doing his testing, he let the teachers know that some of the students, even though they may not show it at the time, are 'late bloomers,' or students who are going to do very well in the future.
The school year goes by, and Rosenthal decides to administer another IQ test to see if there were any changes. Well, the majority of the students had about a four point increase in their IQ, which is pretty normal. Yet, amazingly, as Rosenthal had predicted, those that were designated as 'late bloomers' gained, on average, about fifteen points.
So, what was the secret? How did Rosenthal know that some students would do so well? Simply put, he didn't, which is why this experiment is so amazing. You see, all of the students Rosenthal had labelled as 'late bloomers' were students that he randomly selected; there was nothing more to it than that. Yet, such a drastic difference came about due to something people simply believed. That couldn't hold for other situations, right?
Well, when Rosenthal first published this experiment (after he finally found a journal willing to publish it...), people refused to believe him. In fact, one experimenter, willing to discredit Rosenthal's results, agreed to work with Rosenthal to try and test this again, but with rats this time. So, a little bit different of an experiment, but it was essentially the same idea... Graduate students were given rats, yet some graduate students were told that they had received 'maze bright' rats. Again, the genius of this experiment was that there was no real difference between the rats; everything was purely random. Yet, similar to the results from the previous experiment, the rats that were labelled as 'maze bright' ended up running a maze faster and what not. So, even in a situation with rats, this same phenomenon seems to be present... Madness!
So, many of you have probably heard of the term before, but this phenomenon was labelled a self-fulfilling prophecy. The definition, according to Lieberman's lecture, is "when an originally false social belief leads to its own fulfillment." As you can see in the previous experiments, the false social belief was that the students/rats were different than everyone else when they should have been the same as everyone else. Yet, simply because the teachers believed that their rat/child was special, they did end up becoming special...
There have been other cases where the powers of a self-fulfilling prophecy have held true... The most devastating example is Black Wednesday of 1932 (another example from Lieberman's lecture), when a person wondered out loud if a bank was closing due to what appeared to be a large number of people making withdrawals... People heard this, started to fear that they would lose their money in the bank, and thus withdrew their money. Well, as you can guess, so many people ended up withdrawing their money that the bank did end up closing, leading to an ironic end...
So yes, self-fulfilling prophecies can be quite powerful in both positive and negative aspects. But, they can get really dangerous when they create a self-reinforcing cycle. For example, let's say that a person believes that no one else really likes them. This belief then leads them to be depressed or have poor social interactions with others, thus leading to others avoiding interacting with that person. The person starts to see that this is the case, and thus their self-fulfilling prophecy that no one really likes them is reinforced. In fact, this may lead to an even stronger belief in this prophecy, leading to even worse social interactions, and thus reinforcing the cycle continuously. I didn't explain that very well, but hopefully y'all understand...
I guess the big idea is that what we believe has a very strong effect on what can happen... It sounds weird, but as you can see from the experiments, there is some effect... Part of the way it works is also that if you have a self-fulfilling prophecy, then you start to look for things to confirm your prophecy, even if the evidence isn't really there/a misconstrual (something that psychologists tend to refer to as confirmation bias). In other words, sometimes people only see what they want to see... So, I guess it shows the importance of realizing how much we believe may affect possibly all aspects of our lives. It may be good to have others to keep us (and our beliefs) in check every now and then, no? The more I look into social psychology, the more it seems that we can't really trust ourselves/think we're truly objective, non-bias observers... Just something good to realize, I guess... Oh well, catch y'all next time!
Monday, June 25, 2012
Under (Peer) Pressure
Hey all! Long time, no write... Of course, I happen to say that a lot now hahaha. Anyways, school finished a week ago so I was pretty tired of writing papers... I ended up writing about twenty pages in two weeks or so, which isn't that bad. But still, I guess my brain is just fried from what seemed like a very long year...
Anyways! For those of you that have gleamed over previous posts, you may have noticed that I like to write quite a bit about conformity. It's so interesting to see what affects people's behavior, even if we like to think we're objective masters of observation and actions...
When I think of a school setting, one of the first things that comes to mind is peer pressure, which is something that we all can probably relate to. The common idea is that there is something a group of others are doing and they start to pressure someone to do it. Before you know it, the person gives in and starts doing whatever the other people were pressuring. Ok, very generic, but you get the idea! The idea is, peer pressure is a very clear-cut and everything, right?
Wellll, how about this... Let's say that there's a group of people doing something, such as drinking, as per a typical party session. Now, there are those that choose not to drink, due to things such as age or other factors. While there may be some direct peer pressure from those drinking to get others to drink, there are still a lot of people who drink who accept that others don't want to drink. So, let's say there is a group of eight people drinking and there is one person with them who is not. Since they're not telling him to drink, it's not peer pressure, right?
In this type of situation, I would have to disagree and argue that this is peer pressure. You see, there are two general types of peer pressure: explicit and implicit. Explicit peer pressure is the kind of peer pressure that everyone knows and is the first example from above. Implicit peer pressure is when everyone around a person is doing something, even if they aren't forcing the person to do it as well.
The danger of implicit peer pressure is that it is, well, implicit... For explicit peer pressure, one may be able to point to the others as pressuring them and thus prevent anything from happening. But for implicit, it's almost something that functions under the radar... I don't know the literature on this topic that well unfortunately, so take everything I say with a grain of salt, but I believe that implicit pressure isn't something we really register as happening. In other words, one may commit the action (in the previous case, drinking) in order to feel as if they fit in better with the group. Yet, to attribute their behavior due to the group's pressure would be somewhat incorrect due to the group not directly pressuring the person to do so. So, even if the pressure is implicit and does exist, people may not see it that way, leading to potentially negative situations...
I guess it's a rather basic message and what not, but important, nonetheless! The main idea is that both types of peer pressure may exist in any form of group setting... In other words, if there's any group where some common trait is shared/required, such as attending an elite school where being smart is normal, people may be pressured to have/get that trait. Yet, if they are unable to do so, they may feel socially ostracized, leading to many more problems in itself... Again, though, part of the problem with implicit peer pressure is that it is rather difficult to detect. So, I guess ending message of the night is just to be aware of what kind of situations you really put yourself in... Even if you don't directly see it, there might be some negative peer pressure existing somewhere... So yeah, really general, but aren't you glad that this post is a lot shorter than most of my other ones?!
Anyways! For those of you that have gleamed over previous posts, you may have noticed that I like to write quite a bit about conformity. It's so interesting to see what affects people's behavior, even if we like to think we're objective masters of observation and actions...
When I think of a school setting, one of the first things that comes to mind is peer pressure, which is something that we all can probably relate to. The common idea is that there is something a group of others are doing and they start to pressure someone to do it. Before you know it, the person gives in and starts doing whatever the other people were pressuring. Ok, very generic, but you get the idea! The idea is, peer pressure is a very clear-cut and everything, right?
Wellll, how about this... Let's say that there's a group of people doing something, such as drinking, as per a typical party session. Now, there are those that choose not to drink, due to things such as age or other factors. While there may be some direct peer pressure from those drinking to get others to drink, there are still a lot of people who drink who accept that others don't want to drink. So, let's say there is a group of eight people drinking and there is one person with them who is not. Since they're not telling him to drink, it's not peer pressure, right?
In this type of situation, I would have to disagree and argue that this is peer pressure. You see, there are two general types of peer pressure: explicit and implicit. Explicit peer pressure is the kind of peer pressure that everyone knows and is the first example from above. Implicit peer pressure is when everyone around a person is doing something, even if they aren't forcing the person to do it as well.
The danger of implicit peer pressure is that it is, well, implicit... For explicit peer pressure, one may be able to point to the others as pressuring them and thus prevent anything from happening. But for implicit, it's almost something that functions under the radar... I don't know the literature on this topic that well unfortunately, so take everything I say with a grain of salt, but I believe that implicit pressure isn't something we really register as happening. In other words, one may commit the action (in the previous case, drinking) in order to feel as if they fit in better with the group. Yet, to attribute their behavior due to the group's pressure would be somewhat incorrect due to the group not directly pressuring the person to do so. So, even if the pressure is implicit and does exist, people may not see it that way, leading to potentially negative situations...
I guess it's a rather basic message and what not, but important, nonetheless! The main idea is that both types of peer pressure may exist in any form of group setting... In other words, if there's any group where some common trait is shared/required, such as attending an elite school where being smart is normal, people may be pressured to have/get that trait. Yet, if they are unable to do so, they may feel socially ostracized, leading to many more problems in itself... Again, though, part of the problem with implicit peer pressure is that it is rather difficult to detect. So, I guess ending message of the night is just to be aware of what kind of situations you really put yourself in... Even if you don't directly see it, there might be some negative peer pressure existing somewhere... So yeah, really general, but aren't you glad that this post is a lot shorter than most of my other ones?!
Friday, May 25, 2012
I Just Can't Help Myself!
[two mosquitoes fly near a bug zapper; one flies towards it, as if in a trance]
Bug zapper mosquito #1: Harry, no! Don't look at the light!
Harry the Mosquito: [entranced] I-can't-help-it. It's-so-beautiful.
[Harry gets zapped, falls]
Hey all! Hopefully everyone's enjoying this crazy summer weather, especially for those already on summer. Sigh, three more weeks until freedom...
Anyways, the quote I listed above is from the movie A Bug's Life, for those who don't recall. It's random, I know, but it was one of my favorite scenes in the movies, just because it seemed to explain something that commonly happened.
In fact, it does relate to this post, so bear with me for a second. One of the odder experiments we learned about was one that involved the A not B error, as so labelled by renowned psychologist Piaget. You see, Piaget was a developmental psychology, and like this experiment, he did a lot of experiments on infants. The procedure for this one involved a parent figure holding an infant while an experimenter takes a toy and hides it under one of two cloths, which they labelled well A. The infant was then let go so they could go find the toy. Of course, the infant lifts up the cloth for well A and gets the toy. The infant is then congratulated, and then the process starts over. The experimenters do the process of hiding the toy and reinforcing the infant about three or so times.
Yet, on the fourth time (assuming I'm remembering the number correctly), the experimenter hides the toy under the cloth for well B instead of well A. Naturally, one would think the infant would go for well B to get the toy. Instead, the infant goes for well A, lifts up the cloth, and finds nothing... Yet, one of the strangest parts of the experiment is that the whole time the infant is reaching for the cloth in well B, he/she is starting at the cloth in well A. What's going on?
Piaget proposed that the infant knows that the toy is in well A, as witnessed by the starting, yet he/she cannot help but reaching for well A. As you can probably infer from the design, the researchers reinforced the infants' behavior by repeating the same process over and over. Thus, the infants received reinforcement to go for well A, while the option of well B was not reinforced at all. In fact, other experiments have been done where searching in well A has been only reinforced once and then the toy is put in well B. If this is the case, infants will reach for well B in the majority of the cases. Thus, the infants' behavior needs to be reinforced multiple times for this result to occur.
One of the developmental differences between infants and adults is that an infant does not have their prefrontal cortex fully developed. To over-simplify things, the prefrontal cortex is responsible for controlling certain behaviors. This is ambiguous, I know, but it's hard to simplify such complex functioning. For example, let's say that taking recreational drugs has been reinforced for an individual, and thus they are tempted to take the drugs. Yet, they also know that taking such drugs have possible negative side effects. So, how does the person decide between doing it or not doing it? Simply put, it depends on the strength of one's prefrontal cortex. If the person has a fully developed prefrontal cortex, they are more likely to inhibit simply the idea of reinforcement due to noting the drawbacks. So, essentially, the prefrontal cortex may prevent people from engaging in behaviors that have been reinforced.
Seeing the connection? Like previously mentioned, infants don't really have much of a prefrontal cortex since it hasn't really developed at that point in their life. Thus, it's hard to regulate rewards and behaviors that lead to those rewards. As seen in the case of the infants, they seem to know that the toy is hidden in well B. Yet, due to the reinforcement of looking in well A and lack of prefrontal cortex development, the infant can't really help him/herself but look in well A, even if they know otherwise. Interesting, no?
I don't know of research that connects any of it to a bigger picture, such as an adult, so I'm just going to be speculating at this point. But, the prefrontal cortex is something that doesn't fully develop in the average adult until adulthood (the age of 25, if I remember correctly...). Thus, the ability to regulate behavior is something that emerges developmentally. Yet, the options of drugs and alcohol are available to people before then (obviously). This may mean that teenagers may not be able to properly weigh costs/benefits and thus may be more inclined to participate in such activities, even if they wouldn't later in life. But, alcohol and drugs in large amounts also affects the development of the prefrontal cortex, meaning it may be harder to inhibit any actions that can be reinforcing.
This makes me wonder how hard it must be for those that get addicted to something at a younger age to stay off whatever they're so reinforced by... Even though we tend to view most behaviors such as addictions as being brought upon by one's self, perhaps an earlier life mistake is something that is quite hard to resist once they've aged... Just having a little more sympathy for others might not be a bad thing, yah? Anyways, my mind is going. Time to call it quits for now!
Bug zapper mosquito #1: Harry, no! Don't look at the light!
Harry the Mosquito: [entranced] I-can't-help-it. It's-so-beautiful.
[Harry gets zapped, falls]
Hey all! Hopefully everyone's enjoying this crazy summer weather, especially for those already on summer. Sigh, three more weeks until freedom...
Anyways, the quote I listed above is from the movie A Bug's Life, for those who don't recall. It's random, I know, but it was one of my favorite scenes in the movies, just because it seemed to explain something that commonly happened.
In fact, it does relate to this post, so bear with me for a second. One of the odder experiments we learned about was one that involved the A not B error, as so labelled by renowned psychologist Piaget. You see, Piaget was a developmental psychology, and like this experiment, he did a lot of experiments on infants. The procedure for this one involved a parent figure holding an infant while an experimenter takes a toy and hides it under one of two cloths, which they labelled well A. The infant was then let go so they could go find the toy. Of course, the infant lifts up the cloth for well A and gets the toy. The infant is then congratulated, and then the process starts over. The experimenters do the process of hiding the toy and reinforcing the infant about three or so times.
Yet, on the fourth time (assuming I'm remembering the number correctly), the experimenter hides the toy under the cloth for well B instead of well A. Naturally, one would think the infant would go for well B to get the toy. Instead, the infant goes for well A, lifts up the cloth, and finds nothing... Yet, one of the strangest parts of the experiment is that the whole time the infant is reaching for the cloth in well B, he/she is starting at the cloth in well A. What's going on?
Piaget proposed that the infant knows that the toy is in well A, as witnessed by the starting, yet he/she cannot help but reaching for well A. As you can probably infer from the design, the researchers reinforced the infants' behavior by repeating the same process over and over. Thus, the infants received reinforcement to go for well A, while the option of well B was not reinforced at all. In fact, other experiments have been done where searching in well A has been only reinforced once and then the toy is put in well B. If this is the case, infants will reach for well B in the majority of the cases. Thus, the infants' behavior needs to be reinforced multiple times for this result to occur.
One of the developmental differences between infants and adults is that an infant does not have their prefrontal cortex fully developed. To over-simplify things, the prefrontal cortex is responsible for controlling certain behaviors. This is ambiguous, I know, but it's hard to simplify such complex functioning. For example, let's say that taking recreational drugs has been reinforced for an individual, and thus they are tempted to take the drugs. Yet, they also know that taking such drugs have possible negative side effects. So, how does the person decide between doing it or not doing it? Simply put, it depends on the strength of one's prefrontal cortex. If the person has a fully developed prefrontal cortex, they are more likely to inhibit simply the idea of reinforcement due to noting the drawbacks. So, essentially, the prefrontal cortex may prevent people from engaging in behaviors that have been reinforced.
Seeing the connection? Like previously mentioned, infants don't really have much of a prefrontal cortex since it hasn't really developed at that point in their life. Thus, it's hard to regulate rewards and behaviors that lead to those rewards. As seen in the case of the infants, they seem to know that the toy is hidden in well B. Yet, due to the reinforcement of looking in well A and lack of prefrontal cortex development, the infant can't really help him/herself but look in well A, even if they know otherwise. Interesting, no?
I don't know of research that connects any of it to a bigger picture, such as an adult, so I'm just going to be speculating at this point. But, the prefrontal cortex is something that doesn't fully develop in the average adult until adulthood (the age of 25, if I remember correctly...). Thus, the ability to regulate behavior is something that emerges developmentally. Yet, the options of drugs and alcohol are available to people before then (obviously). This may mean that teenagers may not be able to properly weigh costs/benefits and thus may be more inclined to participate in such activities, even if they wouldn't later in life. But, alcohol and drugs in large amounts also affects the development of the prefrontal cortex, meaning it may be harder to inhibit any actions that can be reinforcing.
This makes me wonder how hard it must be for those that get addicted to something at a younger age to stay off whatever they're so reinforced by... Even though we tend to view most behaviors such as addictions as being brought upon by one's self, perhaps an earlier life mistake is something that is quite hard to resist once they've aged... Just having a little more sympathy for others might not be a bad thing, yah? Anyways, my mind is going. Time to call it quits for now!
Monday, May 14, 2012
It's So Traumatizing, I Don't Even Remember It!
Hey all! Hopefully everyone is enjoying this week and what not. I know lots of semester schools students are on vacation, so congrats to y'all! If you're stuck in the quarter system (like me), hopefully you've made it through midterms!
Anyways, the other day I was thinking about the whole nature vs. nurture argument prevalent between psychology and biology. Of course, the simple answer is that both nature (to simplify, think genetics for humans) and nurture (think societal influences and anything not genetic) both play a role in how one develops. Yet, the real question lies in how much of a role each factor plays its part. To summarize and simplify huge bodies of literature and twin studies and what not, societal factors are rated at 52% and genetic factors are rated at 48% (according to my teacher of LS 15, Dr. Phelan, and my teacher of PSYCH 115, Dr. Jentsch). Studies disagree here and there, but the main idea is that there is about a 50% influence from each factor. Thus, teachers argue that no matter what genes you may receive, you can still fight against it.
Of course, this is not true for things that rely only on genetic information, such as Huntington's Disease. No matter what you do, Huntington's Disease will be present as long as you have the genetic requirements. In that case, the situation is entirely dependent upon your genetics and not your environment. It's a question of what other things are inheritable or not, but practically anything that isn't for sure genetically determined raises the idea of a balance between nature and nurture (somewhat circular, I know, but hopefully you understand what I'm trying to say).
Well, the question I raise for tonight is what if initially the balance between the environment is 50/50, but events out of your control lead to the odds being against your favor (my goodness, an indirect Hunger Games reference. Blarghhh...)? To better explain this, it's best to look at an example...
Back in Developmental Psychology, we learned of a study in which experimenters (Tottenham, Hare, Quinn et al, 2010) looked at records of when children were adopted out of orphanages. The researchers were examining reported anxiety and amygdala volume, which is essentially a part of the brain that reacts to intense emotions like fear. The researchers found a positive correlation between the later the children were adopted out of the orphanage and anxiety and amygdala volume. This may not come as a surprise to you, but the real kicker is that all these children were adopted when they were infants. In other words, all these children have no recollection of the orphanage itself or the poor conditions present. Yet, the effects of such an environment were present even to the day of measurement.
Of course, before anyone points out that correlation does not equal causation (which it doesn't!), this was a quasi-experiment, where a control/comparison group was used to help clarify the effects (for more info on quasi-experiments, go read wiki or something...). In other words, they're a little bit more sure than just a pure correlation study of their results.
Anyways! With methodological concerns out of the way, what's really the significance? When we think of the balance between nature and nurture, like I mentioned, it's usually qualified as a 50/50 balance. Yet, if there are effects out of your control (such as being raised in an orphanage before you can even remember, let alone take care of yourself), how does that affect the balance? Technically, being raised in an orphanage is not something genetic; how much it affects you may have some genetic component, but the effects themselves are part of the nurturing aspect. The big question that arises is if you're somehow genetically inclined to be very fearful (or nature has its 50% effect), and your environment affects you in someway before you can even remember or properly comprehend, does this mean that there is nothing you can do but be fearful, since the scales are weighted against you?
Honestly, I'm not really sure what to think. Even if the odds are against you somehow, and you have a nature that is quite fearful and your environment leads to fearfulness as well, I would like to believe that you can still fight back somehow in the present and thus balance out the effects. In other words, some aspect of your nurturing still allows you to fight back and thus possibly control anxiety/fear. Perhaps it may not be fully controllable, but it's manageable somehow. Also, it is hard to believe that one would have genetics that are completely inclined to being fearful, meaning that one's genetics may have a buffering component against being fearful as well. But, in the absolute worst case scenario, it would be horrible to imagine that one is prone to be fearful both genetically and environmentally with no real hope of fighting back or control. It would be a factor that one could not do anything about, and that in itself might lead to hopelessness... Anyways, I think that's enough for now, and perhaps gives you something to think about. Hopefully my posts are starting to get shorter so that people actually make it to this final sentence without skipping ahead, eh? Oh well, until next time!
Anyways, the other day I was thinking about the whole nature vs. nurture argument prevalent between psychology and biology. Of course, the simple answer is that both nature (to simplify, think genetics for humans) and nurture (think societal influences and anything not genetic) both play a role in how one develops. Yet, the real question lies in how much of a role each factor plays its part. To summarize and simplify huge bodies of literature and twin studies and what not, societal factors are rated at 52% and genetic factors are rated at 48% (according to my teacher of LS 15, Dr. Phelan, and my teacher of PSYCH 115, Dr. Jentsch). Studies disagree here and there, but the main idea is that there is about a 50% influence from each factor. Thus, teachers argue that no matter what genes you may receive, you can still fight against it.
Of course, this is not true for things that rely only on genetic information, such as Huntington's Disease. No matter what you do, Huntington's Disease will be present as long as you have the genetic requirements. In that case, the situation is entirely dependent upon your genetics and not your environment. It's a question of what other things are inheritable or not, but practically anything that isn't for sure genetically determined raises the idea of a balance between nature and nurture (somewhat circular, I know, but hopefully you understand what I'm trying to say).
Well, the question I raise for tonight is what if initially the balance between the environment is 50/50, but events out of your control lead to the odds being against your favor (my goodness, an indirect Hunger Games reference. Blarghhh...)? To better explain this, it's best to look at an example...
Back in Developmental Psychology, we learned of a study in which experimenters (Tottenham, Hare, Quinn et al, 2010) looked at records of when children were adopted out of orphanages. The researchers were examining reported anxiety and amygdala volume, which is essentially a part of the brain that reacts to intense emotions like fear. The researchers found a positive correlation between the later the children were adopted out of the orphanage and anxiety and amygdala volume. This may not come as a surprise to you, but the real kicker is that all these children were adopted when they were infants. In other words, all these children have no recollection of the orphanage itself or the poor conditions present. Yet, the effects of such an environment were present even to the day of measurement.
Of course, before anyone points out that correlation does not equal causation (which it doesn't!), this was a quasi-experiment, where a control/comparison group was used to help clarify the effects (for more info on quasi-experiments, go read wiki or something...). In other words, they're a little bit more sure than just a pure correlation study of their results.
Anyways! With methodological concerns out of the way, what's really the significance? When we think of the balance between nature and nurture, like I mentioned, it's usually qualified as a 50/50 balance. Yet, if there are effects out of your control (such as being raised in an orphanage before you can even remember, let alone take care of yourself), how does that affect the balance? Technically, being raised in an orphanage is not something genetic; how much it affects you may have some genetic component, but the effects themselves are part of the nurturing aspect. The big question that arises is if you're somehow genetically inclined to be very fearful (or nature has its 50% effect), and your environment affects you in someway before you can even remember or properly comprehend, does this mean that there is nothing you can do but be fearful, since the scales are weighted against you?
Honestly, I'm not really sure what to think. Even if the odds are against you somehow, and you have a nature that is quite fearful and your environment leads to fearfulness as well, I would like to believe that you can still fight back somehow in the present and thus balance out the effects. In other words, some aspect of your nurturing still allows you to fight back and thus possibly control anxiety/fear. Perhaps it may not be fully controllable, but it's manageable somehow. Also, it is hard to believe that one would have genetics that are completely inclined to being fearful, meaning that one's genetics may have a buffering component against being fearful as well. But, in the absolute worst case scenario, it would be horrible to imagine that one is prone to be fearful both genetically and environmentally with no real hope of fighting back or control. It would be a factor that one could not do anything about, and that in itself might lead to hopelessness... Anyways, I think that's enough for now, and perhaps gives you something to think about. Hopefully my posts are starting to get shorter so that people actually make it to this final sentence without skipping ahead, eh? Oh well, until next time!
Sunday, May 6, 2012
The Powers of (Mis)Attribution...
Hey all! It's quite surprising, but I may actually be getting a post down for every week. Well, for two weeks at least... You gotta start somewhere, right?
Anyways, it's best to introduce today's topic with a story. Perhaps you've heard of Monk, but for those who haven't, it's a detective show about a man (Adrian Monk) who has multiple forms of OCD. One of the things he obsesses about is cleanliness. He prefers not to shake hands with anyone, and if he does, he likes to use a moist towelette afterwards to clean his hands.
In one of the episodes, Monk meets with a group responsible for putting on a marathon. As with proper introductions, he realizes that he is going to have to shake multiple people's hands, so he decides to wait until the end before he cleans. Well, he shakes hands with about four people, all of whom are white, and he ends by shaking hands with a man who happens to be black. Afterwards, since he's done shaking hands, he uses a moist towelette. Yet, he's instantly called out by everyone there for being racist, since he only used the towelette after shaking the black person's hand. Monk tries to explain the situation, but to no avail...
For those who had known Monk previously, it would just appear that Monk was cleaning his hands after meeting so many new people. Yet, to those who had never met Monk before, he instantly appeared racist... This example shows how powerful causal attributions can be, or the reasons we have for why someone does what they do. Interestingly enough, people like to know causal attributions for almost everything that happens. How many instances or phenomena are there that you know of that you readily accept that there's no cause or reasoning to them? Yet, even with these attributions, we are cognitive misers, which means that we try to expend as little as cognitive energy/action as possible. The result is that we can place a cause or a reason on just about everything that happens, but we tend not to care to check if our results are truly accurate or not.
Of course, it wouldn't really make sense (nor would it exactly be healthy) to question our reasons for everything. It would be a waste of time and mental energy to try and ensure everything that we know is correct. Of course, I'm not saying that it's not good to question anything, but that it's not practical to question everything. Again, a situation of balance with questioning and knowing is probably for the best, a theme that seems to be quite common in these writings...
Anyways, part of the danger of causal attributions involves what characteristic the attribution is made to. Let's go back to the example with Monk and the last person... If the person attributed Monk using the moist towelette simply to Monk wanting to keep his hands clean, the person probably wouldn't have done more than just give Monk a funny look for being a clean freak. Yet, the danger lies in the fact that the person attributed it to his race. You see, you can wash dirty hands, but race is not something changed. Knowing that people are acting against you due to an unchangeable, stable factor can be hugely daunting and anger-provoking, among other things. When interactions depend entirely on someone else's perception of you, it's easy to get frustrated when someone does something negative (due to you seeing them acting that way due to a factor you can't change). The only factor that can be changed in this situation is why you think others did what they did.
Please don't get me wrong and think I'm saying that people jump to conclusions when they think others are acting in a discriminatory manner. There are some cases where it may be more obvious than not, and in the example with Monk, assuming nobody knows who he is, it would be natural to think he is racist. What I wonder is if having a naivety when making causal attributions could somehow be mentally defensive, whereas possibly attributing others' actions as racism could have a negative impact on how one sees the world. In other words, if you believe that others act negatively around you due to your race, you may start to act negatively around them. If so, they may return your hostility, creating a tension and supporting your idea of how so many others are racist (this is somewhat of an extreme example, but you get the point). Of course, seeing the world for how it actually is may be better than naively believing the world is hunky-dory, but perhaps it would depend on the situation... Unfortunately, it's not something that I have the answer to, but is more just a passing thought I shall leave to you to ponder as well. Oh well, thanks if you've made it this far, and hopefully I shall be back at this again come next week!
Anyways, it's best to introduce today's topic with a story. Perhaps you've heard of Monk, but for those who haven't, it's a detective show about a man (Adrian Monk) who has multiple forms of OCD. One of the things he obsesses about is cleanliness. He prefers not to shake hands with anyone, and if he does, he likes to use a moist towelette afterwards to clean his hands.
In one of the episodes, Monk meets with a group responsible for putting on a marathon. As with proper introductions, he realizes that he is going to have to shake multiple people's hands, so he decides to wait until the end before he cleans. Well, he shakes hands with about four people, all of whom are white, and he ends by shaking hands with a man who happens to be black. Afterwards, since he's done shaking hands, he uses a moist towelette. Yet, he's instantly called out by everyone there for being racist, since he only used the towelette after shaking the black person's hand. Monk tries to explain the situation, but to no avail...
For those who had known Monk previously, it would just appear that Monk was cleaning his hands after meeting so many new people. Yet, to those who had never met Monk before, he instantly appeared racist... This example shows how powerful causal attributions can be, or the reasons we have for why someone does what they do. Interestingly enough, people like to know causal attributions for almost everything that happens. How many instances or phenomena are there that you know of that you readily accept that there's no cause or reasoning to them? Yet, even with these attributions, we are cognitive misers, which means that we try to expend as little as cognitive energy/action as possible. The result is that we can place a cause or a reason on just about everything that happens, but we tend not to care to check if our results are truly accurate or not.
Of course, it wouldn't really make sense (nor would it exactly be healthy) to question our reasons for everything. It would be a waste of time and mental energy to try and ensure everything that we know is correct. Of course, I'm not saying that it's not good to question anything, but that it's not practical to question everything. Again, a situation of balance with questioning and knowing is probably for the best, a theme that seems to be quite common in these writings...
Anyways, part of the danger of causal attributions involves what characteristic the attribution is made to. Let's go back to the example with Monk and the last person... If the person attributed Monk using the moist towelette simply to Monk wanting to keep his hands clean, the person probably wouldn't have done more than just give Monk a funny look for being a clean freak. Yet, the danger lies in the fact that the person attributed it to his race. You see, you can wash dirty hands, but race is not something changed. Knowing that people are acting against you due to an unchangeable, stable factor can be hugely daunting and anger-provoking, among other things. When interactions depend entirely on someone else's perception of you, it's easy to get frustrated when someone does something negative (due to you seeing them acting that way due to a factor you can't change). The only factor that can be changed in this situation is why you think others did what they did.
Please don't get me wrong and think I'm saying that people jump to conclusions when they think others are acting in a discriminatory manner. There are some cases where it may be more obvious than not, and in the example with Monk, assuming nobody knows who he is, it would be natural to think he is racist. What I wonder is if having a naivety when making causal attributions could somehow be mentally defensive, whereas possibly attributing others' actions as racism could have a negative impact on how one sees the world. In other words, if you believe that others act negatively around you due to your race, you may start to act negatively around them. If so, they may return your hostility, creating a tension and supporting your idea of how so many others are racist (this is somewhat of an extreme example, but you get the point). Of course, seeing the world for how it actually is may be better than naively believing the world is hunky-dory, but perhaps it would depend on the situation... Unfortunately, it's not something that I have the answer to, but is more just a passing thought I shall leave to you to ponder as well. Oh well, thanks if you've made it this far, and hopefully I shall be back at this again come next week!
Friday, April 27, 2012
Remember, Kids, Princess Alice is Watching You...
Hey all! It seems to be a common theme whenever I write now, but I seem to be really bad at consistency... I guess that's just a given now, yah?
Anyways! Tuesday night was the Veritas Forum, which is essentially a discussion that takes place between a Christian and (typically) an Atheistic professor over some issue of interest. This time, it was a professor/doctor from Duke named Ray Barfield (Tim Lin would be so proud...) and a doctor from Cedar-Sinai Medical Center here at UCLA named Michael Lill. The topic of the night was about seeking meaning through suffering and death, and it was somewhat interesting. Unfortunately, a lot of it was a bit long-winded (pot calling the kettle black, I know), so I'm still trying to mentally sort it out.
One of the things that really struck me, though, was that Doctor Lill started talking about the idea of a Creator or God being something that was an important development evolutionarily. For support, he mentioned an experiment by Piazza, Bering, and Ingram (2011) that studied children's cheating behaviors and "Princess Alice" (Abstract: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002209651100035X).
Essentially, the experimenters wanted to see if children would cheat on a test given the chance to do so. The researchers manipulated whether an adult was supervising, no adult was present, or that children were told an invisible princess named Alice was watching over them. The results found that children were more likely to cheat when there was no adult present to supervise them, and they cheated significantly less when an adult was present, both of which seem obvious. Yet, the interesting part is that children who believed Princess Alice actually was present cheated as little (statistically significant, wise) as those that had an adult directly supervising them. Those that didn't (labelled skeptical children) but were in the "Princess Alice" condition cheated at higher rates, but only cheated after first empirically "disproving" that Princess Alice wasn't actually there.
The researchers concluded that belief in an invisible person can deter the rates of cheating among children. This is all the experiment showed, of course, but the implications of such an experiment could be huge. For one, it reminds me a lot of Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon, which was essentially the idea of having a jail where the warden could watch every single prisoner at once, thus lowering criminally deviant behavior. Yet, in this case, Princess Alice herself was invisible, and thus the children simply believed she existed in order for Alice's effects to be present.
Of course, Dr. Lill was talking about how this belief in an invisible being would be important for early societies to develop, but he was also referencing how that might be God today. If there are those that believe an invisible, omnipotent being is constantly watching over them, how much behavior is inhibited/influenced due to them believing in His presence? How many Christians actually hold to their beliefs not because they solely believe it's the truth, but fear of punishment or repercussions from their actions? Even if like to think it might not be the case, one of the main things that I've learned from Social Psych is that we don't know ourselves as well as we would like to think. Thus, even if we would like to think it's not the sole factor of why we do what we do, it still may be a significant part of it...
I don't know, I'm not even sure if it should be a problem believing that God is always watching, but it can give the possibility of being a Christian for the wrong reasons... Then again, it could possibly be a good influence on behavior. This might be one of the issues where it boils down to intent, which means it's impossible to tell except for the person who has the intentions. Yet, if this is the case, sometimes our intentions are even unaware to us (as previously mentioned), making it even more difficult to answer. Anyways, I think that's a good stopping point for the night... Oh well! Hopefully y'all enjoyed it, and I shall be (hopefully) posting again soon enough!
One of the things that really struck me, though, was that Doctor Lill started talking about the idea of a Creator or God being something that was an important development evolutionarily. For support, he mentioned an experiment by Piazza, Bering, and Ingram (2011) that studied children's cheating behaviors and "Princess Alice" (Abstract: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002209651100035X).
Essentially, the experimenters wanted to see if children would cheat on a test given the chance to do so. The researchers manipulated whether an adult was supervising, no adult was present, or that children were told an invisible princess named Alice was watching over them. The results found that children were more likely to cheat when there was no adult present to supervise them, and they cheated significantly less when an adult was present, both of which seem obvious. Yet, the interesting part is that children who believed Princess Alice actually was present cheated as little (statistically significant, wise) as those that had an adult directly supervising them. Those that didn't (labelled skeptical children) but were in the "Princess Alice" condition cheated at higher rates, but only cheated after first empirically "disproving" that Princess Alice wasn't actually there.
The researchers concluded that belief in an invisible person can deter the rates of cheating among children. This is all the experiment showed, of course, but the implications of such an experiment could be huge. For one, it reminds me a lot of Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon, which was essentially the idea of having a jail where the warden could watch every single prisoner at once, thus lowering criminally deviant behavior. Yet, in this case, Princess Alice herself was invisible, and thus the children simply believed she existed in order for Alice's effects to be present.
Of course, Dr. Lill was talking about how this belief in an invisible being would be important for early societies to develop, but he was also referencing how that might be God today. If there are those that believe an invisible, omnipotent being is constantly watching over them, how much behavior is inhibited/influenced due to them believing in His presence? How many Christians actually hold to their beliefs not because they solely believe it's the truth, but fear of punishment or repercussions from their actions? Even if like to think it might not be the case, one of the main things that I've learned from Social Psych is that we don't know ourselves as well as we would like to think. Thus, even if we would like to think it's not the sole factor of why we do what we do, it still may be a significant part of it...
I don't know, I'm not even sure if it should be a problem believing that God is always watching, but it can give the possibility of being a Christian for the wrong reasons... Then again, it could possibly be a good influence on behavior. This might be one of the issues where it boils down to intent, which means it's impossible to tell except for the person who has the intentions. Yet, if this is the case, sometimes our intentions are even unaware to us (as previously mentioned), making it even more difficult to answer. Anyways, I think that's a good stopping point for the night... Oh well! Hopefully y'all enjoyed it, and I shall be (hopefully) posting again soon enough!
Sunday, March 4, 2012
I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine...
Hey all! Midterms and papers are done for now, so now is as good of a time as any to write. I'm a little bit sleep-deprived when I'm writing (again haha) so I apologize in advance for anything that's off.
Anyways, I figured I'd continue on the path I was going on before and look at more social psych techniques for advertising and persuasion. For any that may recall from the last post, the four common techniques are norm of reciprocity, door-in-the-face (DITF), foot-in-the-door (FITD), and lowballing. I talked a little bit about DITF on the last post, so the one I want to focus on this time is the norm of reciprocity.
The norm of reciprocity is the idea that whenever someone does something for us, we tend to be willing to do something for them in return. In other words, if I do something for you, you're more likely to do something for me. This is supposed to be a very normal and accepted standard in today's culture, yet those that aren't aware it is can be taken advantage of...
Not that the further tarnishing of the reputation of used-car salesmen is needed, but the norm of reciprocity is supposed to be one of their most common techniques. When people come to used-car lots, the dealer usually offers them a cup of coffee, free of charge. The car dealer could easily sell coffee instead of giving it away for free, so what's the point? Evidence has shown that when people receive this free "gift", they are more likely to compensate by doing some form of favor to the used-cars salesman.
Not that the further tarnishing of the reputation of used-car salesmen is needed, but the norm of reciprocity is supposed to be one of their most common techniques. When people come to used-car lots, the dealer usually offers them a cup of coffee, free of charge. The car dealer could easily sell coffee instead of giving it away for free, so what's the point? Evidence has shown that when people receive this free "gift", they are more likely to compensate by doing some form of favor to the used-cars salesman.
An example of this is best seen in a classic norm of reciprocity experiment that involves a used-car salesman, a student selling tickets (a confederate), and the participant. The participant comes onto the lot and is either offered a free cup of coffee from the used-cars salesman, the confederate, or is not offered a cup of coffee (the control condition). After the coffee is offered, the confederate asks the participant if they are willing to buy some raffle tickets for a fundraiser their school is having. The results indicated that there was no significant difference of tickets bought in the no coffee or used-car salesman conditions; but, a significant difference was found in the number of tickets bought when the student was the one that offered the participant the cup of coffee.
The results indicate that we are more likely to help someone that helped us, which is what we established as the norm of reciprocity. I don't know if experiments have been done to signify to what degree we are willing to help, but even just small favors seem to have big effects in terms of repayment of favors. Helping one out when they help you out doesn't have to be a bad thing, of course, but when people know social functions work this way, that's when things can become questionable... The best example I can think of is an anecdote from one of my old professors, Dr. Phelan. He told us a story of how he had to call up a friend one day to take him to the airport. The whole ride, his friend mentioned/complained about how much effort it took to get him there. At the end of the ride, Phelan said that he felt pretty bad and guilty for asking the guy to drive him. Yet, to this day, the person hasn't asked Phelan for a favor back. Instead, every now and then, when they're hanging out, the person reminds Phelan of that one favor of driving him to the airport way back when and how he still hasn't asked for his favor to be repaid. Thus, this person has a constant guilt-trip over Phelan, and that one day when he needs a really big favor done, Phelan said he'll probably feel guilty enough to help him out.
The results indicate that we are more likely to help someone that helped us, which is what we established as the norm of reciprocity. I don't know if experiments have been done to signify to what degree we are willing to help, but even just small favors seem to have big effects in terms of repayment of favors. Helping one out when they help you out doesn't have to be a bad thing, of course, but when people know social functions work this way, that's when things can become questionable... The best example I can think of is an anecdote from one of my old professors, Dr. Phelan. He told us a story of how he had to call up a friend one day to take him to the airport. The whole ride, his friend mentioned/complained about how much effort it took to get him there. At the end of the ride, Phelan said that he felt pretty bad and guilty for asking the guy to drive him. Yet, to this day, the person hasn't asked Phelan for a favor back. Instead, every now and then, when they're hanging out, the person reminds Phelan of that one favor of driving him to the airport way back when and how he still hasn't asked for his favor to be repaid. Thus, this person has a constant guilt-trip over Phelan, and that one day when he needs a really big favor done, Phelan said he'll probably feel guilty enough to help him out.
In that case, I don't even know if that would be proper behavior for a "friend"... Moral of the story, though, is to be careful of those who you ask to help you out (wow, that sounds really paranoid in hindsight)... But, what I'm trying to say is that sometimes people are willing to do you favors not because they know you need help, but what they can get in return. I don't remember the experiments that cite it, but I know Lieberman mentioned studies in which the closer people are, the less of a focus on reciprocation there is. In other words, closer friends are able to do each other favors without expecting something in return. That can be a testament of the strength of a friendship; but, in that case, a person can also be taken advantage of if they do too many favors for a friend who doesn't reciprocate. So, I guess the main idea is that overlooking favors and what not every now and then can be an indicator of a healthy relationship. Yet, when too many favors are done without reciprocation, that can be a negative sign as well. Thus, as it seems to be a common theme for many things of life, perhaps a balance between the two views is the healthiest way to go... But ok, that's enough for now. I'll be back to writing s'more soon enough! For now, I think I'm gonna go get some sleep...
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Here, Have a Door-in-the-Face!
Hey all! I feel like I've said this many times before, but sorry for taking so long to update... Things have been really crazy this quarter, but sometimes in a good way. In fact, I started this post at 2:20 AM due to purposely trying to sleep late. I had a Dance Marathon shift from 7:30PM to 5:30 AM tomorrow, so I figured I'd just try sleeping really late and hope I can last through the night haha.
Anyways, the other day my friend Jose got a call from a group called UCLA Student Giving Committee. This group focuses on calling students at UCLA and asking them to make a relatively large monthly donation. If the person refuses, the caller tones down their offer and asks for something much more simple, such as a $20 donation. Hopefully he doesn't mind me posting this, but once the person asked for the donation, he simply told the caller, "Hey, I know what you're doing..." You see, Jose is taking Social Psychology (which is my favorite subject and class at UCLA), and one of the topics the class has covered is basic advertising. The four basic techniques he has covered are the norm of reciprocity, foot-in-the-door (FITD), door-in-the-face (DITF), and low-balling. While all of them are quite significant, with the norm of reciprocity being the most personally interesting to me, we'll focus on DITF since that's the technique used on Jose.
Door-in-the-face works by presenting someone with an exorbitantly large request, and then presenting a small request after the initial request is rejected. For example, let's say that I'm trying to recruit people for a community service project. It's hard to get people to volunteer with a direct request, so many recruiters tend to take advantage of these techniques. So, instead of asking people to volunteer an hour, I ask them to volunteer 10 hours of their day for community service. Of course, this is quite a lot, and it's a request that's not really meant to be accepted. After my initial request is rejected, I ask them if they can just simply spend one hour of their time helping us out instead of ten. Interestingly enough, not only does this technique lead to more people agreeing to help, but also a significantly larger number of people actually show up after committing as compared to just presenting the initial request of an hour.
Why does this work, exactly? It's up for debate, but psychologists tend to agree that it plays on a heuristic known as the anchor and adjustment heuristic. Simply put, heuristics refer to the way that we see and interpret the world, almost like a mental filter or processor. The simplest way to demonstrate this heuristic is to read this:
The Mississippi River is shorter than 3750 miles. How long is the Mississippi River?
Assuming that you, as the reader, don't actually already know the answer to this question, I'd guess you would range somewhere around 3000 miles or so. The Mississippi River is actually 2320 miles long or so, which is probably shorter than what you were expecting. As you may have gathered, the anchor and adjustment heuristic takes the info that was presented previously and uses that as an "anchor" point to which we guide decisions. 3000 miles seems a reasonable guess since I said it's shorter than 3750 miles, as 1500 miles would have seemed reasonable if I said the Mississippi River is longer than 750 miles. Our brain takes this information that we know for sure to be true, or our 'anchor', and uses that as to make a guess for things that we do not know, which is the adjustment.
The Mississippi River is shorter than 3750 miles. How long is the Mississippi River?
Assuming that you, as the reader, don't actually already know the answer to this question, I'd guess you would range somewhere around 3000 miles or so. The Mississippi River is actually 2320 miles long or so, which is probably shorter than what you were expecting. As you may have gathered, the anchor and adjustment heuristic takes the info that was presented previously and uses that as an "anchor" point to which we guide decisions. 3000 miles seems a reasonable guess since I said it's shorter than 3750 miles, as 1500 miles would have seemed reasonable if I said the Mississippi River is longer than 750 miles. Our brain takes this information that we know for sure to be true, or our 'anchor', and uses that as to make a guess for things that we do not know, which is the adjustment.
So, if we go back to the story of Jose, we can see how this works out. The caller from UCLA Student Giving Committee asked for a large monthly request from Jose, which he initially refused. Yet, after that he was asked if he could make a small donation of $20 instead. As I'm sure you can figure out, this large recurring monthly donation was the 'anchor' the caller presented. When Jose refused that and they offered the choice of donating $20, they were hoping the adjustment seemed so large in comparison to the 'anchor' that Jose would be willing to comply, for $20 sounds like chump change compared to having to spend $50 or so every month. Hence, you can see how this is a large request followed by a small request by comparison, illustrating the DITF technique.
It's quite a simple mental trick, but as experiments have shown, it can also be an effective one. Now you, as readers, can hopefully be more aware of some of the tips and tricks used in advertising and recruitment and thus prevent yourself for falling for them. Or, you could always use these techniques on other people now that you know how it works... Of course, that's not something I personally recommend, and Joey and I always joke about this knowledge as the "dark side" of psychology. Nevertheless, hopefully you've become a little bit more aware of some social psychology information and techniques, and I shall be back soon enough posting how the other techniques work (Maybe...).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
