Transcript Chapter 2 The Person and the Situation This multimedia product and its contents are protected under copyright law.

Chapter 2
The Person and the
Situation
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Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
Chapter Outline
The Person
The Situation
The Person and The Situation
Interact
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The Person
Motivation: What Drives Us
Knowledge: Our View of the World
Feelings: Attitudes, Emotions, and
Moods
Focus on Method: Assessing Feelings
Introducing the Self
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Motivation: What Drives Us
Motivation –
the force that moves people toward their
desired outcomes
Goal –
a desired outcome; something one
wishes to achieve or accomplish
Motive –
a goal fundamental to social survival
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Motivation
What are your goals?
What goals do you have for today?
What goals do you have for this
semester?
What goals do you have for your
career?
What goals do you have for your life?
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Motivation
Gain Status
Get Well-Paying, Highly
Respected Job
Earn High Grades
Attend
Class
Take Study for
Notes Exams
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Motivation
Attention –
the process of consciously focusing
on aspects of our environment or
ourselves; selecting from the
infinite-indefinite.
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Motivation
Automaticity –
the ability of a behavior or cognitive
process to operate without conscious
guidance once it’s put into motion
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Willpower:
Use it and lose it.
Participants in one experiment were
asked to eat radishes rather than
nearby cookies.
Others were asked to eat cookies and
ignore the radishes.
The students were then asked to solve
puzzles (which, unbeknownst to
them, were actually impossible).
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25:00
25:52
18:54
20:00
Persistence
on puzzles
(minutes)
15:00
10:00
5:00
8:21
Control
(Puzzle Task
Only)
Cookie-eaters
(No Radishes
Allowed)
Radish-eaters
(No Cookies
Allowed)
Participants who had to exercise will-power to
resist the cookies had less will-power left
over for the difficult puzzles
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25:00
25:52
18:54
20:00
Persistence
on puzzles
(minutes)
15:00
10:00
5:00
8:21
Control
(Puzzle Task
Only)
Cookie-eaters
(No Radishes
Allowed)
Radish-eaters
(No Cookies
Allowed)
These findings are consistent with the
hypothesis that:
Using willpower for one task reduces its
availability for later tasks.
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Motivation
Willpower –
the self-control strength used to
overcome counterproductive
impulses to achieve difficult goals
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Self-Control and mental effort
California Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante is in the midst of one of
the worst scandals of his career. No, the state's secondhighest-ranking elected official was not accused of child
molestation, adultery, or influence peddling; he was
accused of using the dreaded "N-word."
On February 13, 2001, in a speech to a group of black trade
unionists, Bustamante was reciting a list of AfricanAmerican labor organizations established in the early
1900s, many of which included the word "Negro" in their
titles. While uttering one of those names, Bustamante let
slip the word "nigger" instead of 'negro.' A handful of
blacks in the audience stormed out in protest, and
Bustamante has been apologizing up and down the state
ever since
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Knowledge: Our View of
Ourselves and the World
Explanations
Beliefs
Sensory
Memories
Mental Representation
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Knowledge: Our View of
Ourselves and the World
King pursued his
goal because he
was religious.
Explanations
Beliefs
He was
spiritual,
wanted to
eliminate
discrimination.
Martin
Luther
King
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Sensory
Memories
“I have a
dream…”
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Knowledge: Our View of
Ourselves and the World
Exemplar –
mental representation of a specific
episode, event, or individual
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Knowledge: Our View of
Ourselves and the World
Schema –
a mental representation capturing
the general characteristics of a
particular class of episodes, events,
or individuals
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Knowledge: Our View of
Ourselves and the World
Priming –
The process of activating knowledge
or goals, making them ready for use:
Examples:
Person
situation
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Knowledge: Our View of
Ourselves and the World
Chronic Accessibility–
the state of being easily activated or
primed for use.
The role of automaticity
Bias and prejudice affecting attention
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Feelings:
Attitudes, Emotions, and Moods
Attitudes –
favorable or unfavorable feelings
towards particular people, objects,
events or ideas
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Feelings:
Attitudes, Emotions, and Moods
Emotions –
relatively intense feelings
characterized by physiological
arousal and complex cognitions
(e.g., fear, anger, joy)
Emotions are more intense than
attitudes.
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Feelings:
Attitudes, Emotions, and Moods
Moods –
relatively long-lasting feelings that
are less focused than emotions, and
not directed toward a particular
target
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Genetic and Cultural
Foundations of Feelings
Evidence for genetic influences:
People from different societies express
and experience emotions in
surprisingly similar ways:
People in remote regions of the world
agree on facial expressions for
happiness, fear, anger, and disgust.
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Genetic and Cultural
Foundations of Feelings
Evidence for genetic influences:
Children born deaf, blind, and brain
damaged are unable to learn emotional
responses from their social world.
Nevertheless, they show many normal
emotional reactions like smiling,
laughter, anger, and surprise.
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Genetic and Cultural
Foundations of Feelings
Evidence for genetic influences:
Behavior genetic studies indicate a
heritable component to emotions and
moods expressed by related
individuals. (page 45)
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Genetic and Cultural
Foundations of Feelings
Evidence for cultural influences:
People in different cultures learn
different rules about expressing
emotions.
Example: Utku Eskimos rarely express
anger; Awlad’Ali Bedouins quickly
express their anger.
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Proximate Contributors to
Feelings
Gently hold a pen between your teeth,
making sure it doesn’t touch your
lips.
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Proximate Contributors to
Feelings
Now grip the end of the pen firmly
with your lips, making sure it
doesn’t dip downward.
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Proximate Contributors to
Feelings
In an experiment by researchers Fritz
Strack, Leonard Martin and Sabine
Stepper, students read cartoons
while holding the pen with either
their teeth or their lips.
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Proximate Contributors to
Feelings
Compared to control participants who
held the pen in their hands, those
who held the pen in their teeth rated
cartoons as funnier.
Those who held the pen in their lips
rated the cartoons as less funny.
Why?
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Proximate Contributors to
Feelings
Holding the pen between your teeth
contracts the facial muscles into
something like a smile.
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Proximate Contributors to
Feelings
Holding the pen firmly between the
lips creates an expression similar to
an angry grimace.
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Proximate Contributors to
Feelings
Our feelings are influenced strongly
by how we appraise our situations.
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Proximate Contributors to
Feelings
Who is happier following Olympic
performances – Silver medalists or
bronze medalists?
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Proximate Contributors to
Feelings
Researchers analyzed films from 1992
Olympics, and found that athletes
who won Bronze medals were
happier than those who won Silver.
Why?
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Proximate Contributors to
Feelings
Silver medalists talked about how
close they had come to a Gold.
Bronze medalists imagined winning no
medal at all.
Counterfactual thinking –
process of imagining alternative
versions of actual events
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When Doing Better Means
Feeling Worse
After receiving their grade in
Introductory Psychology, Cornell
students were asked to report:
Their final numerical grade
The grade they had expected to receive
How satisfied they were with their
course grade.
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More satisfied 5
4
Satisfaction
with grade
3
2
1
Less satisfied 0
Just missed
getting
higher grade
Missed higher
grade by a
good amount
Just missed
getting lower
grade
Students who had just missed the cut-off for the
higher grade were less satisfied than students
who had missedMedvec,
the cut-off
for
a
lower
grade.
V. H., & Savitsky, K. (1997)
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When Doing Better Means
Feeling Worse
In other words, a student who received
an 81 (receiving a B, but just
missing a C) would likely be
happier than a student who received
an 89 (receiving a B, but just
missing an A).
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Focus on Method:
Assessing Feelings
Feelings can be inferred from the
following:
behavior (e.g. clenched fists or frowns)
physiological measures (e.g. heart rate,
blood pressure)
Researchers search for convergence
between self-reports, behaviors, and
physiological measures.
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Introducing the Self
Take a minute to write about yourself.
What did you list?
Examples of past behavior?
General characteristics?
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Introducing the Self
Self concept –
a mental representation capturing
our views and beliefs about
ourselves
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Introducing the Self
Self-esteem –
the specific attitude we have toward
ourselves
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Introducing the Self
Reflected appraisal process –
the process through which people
come to know themselves by
observing or imagining how others
view them
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Introducing the Self
Social comparison –
the process through which people
come to know themselves by
comparing their abilities, attitudes
and beliefs with those of others
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Introducing the Self
Self perception process –
the process through which people
observe their own behavior to infer
their own internal characteristics;
“looking-glass self”
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Introducing the Self
Self presentation –
the process through which we try to
control the impressions people form
of us in order to achieve goals; selfregulation is included in the process
of presentation. Why?
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The Situation
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The Situation
Persons as Situations: Mere Presence,
Affordances, and Descriptive Norms
Focus on Social Dysfunction: Descriptive
Norms, Pluralistic Ignorance, and Binge
Drinking on Campus
Rules: Injunctive Norms and Scripted
Situations
Strong Versus Weak Situations
Culture
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Persons as Situations:
Mere Presence
Small schools are “undermanned” – they
need all their students. Because of this,
students participate in more activities
and feel more challenged.
Large schools are “overmanned” – they
don’t need all their students. Thus,
students are less needed and more likely
to be socially isolated (Barker & Gump,
1964).
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Persons as Situations:
Affordance
Imagine you are at the company picnic
and you spot your new boss sitting
by himself.
This could be a good chance to
advance your career.
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Persons as Situations:
Affordance
Affordance –
opportunity or threat provided by a
situation
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Persons as Situations:
Descriptive Norms
Descriptive norm –
information about what people
commonly do in a situation
Example: Many students wear jeans to
classes.
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Rules: Injunctive Norms and
Scripted Situations
Injunctive norm – vs. Descriptive
rules that define what is typically
approved and disapproved of in a
situation
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Persons as Situations:
Pluralistic Ignorance
Imagine you are in your social psychology
class, and don’t understand a concept the
professor just explained.
You look around and no one else seems
confused.
Not wanting to look like the only one who
doesn’t understand, you don’t raise your
hand.
What if everyone else is doing the same?
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Persons as Situations:
Pluralistic Ignorance
Pluralistic ignorance –
the phenomenon in which people in
a group misperceive the beliefs of
others because everyone in the
group is acting inconsistently with
their beliefs
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Descriptive Norms, Pluralistic
Ignorance, and Binge Drinking on
Campus
Over 40 percent of students binge
drink at least twice a month.
Males are more likely to drink than
females (51% vs. 40%).
Pluralistic ignorance plays a role in
student drinking.
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Descriptive Norms, Pluralistic
Ignorance, and Binge Drinking on
Campus
The typical student erroneously believes
that he or she is relatively alone in being
uncomfortable with alcohol abuse on
campus.
Over time, men shift their opinions to be
more consistent with their
misperceptions of others.
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Rules: Injunctive Norms and
Scripted Situations
Scripted situation –
a situation in which certain events
are expected to occur in a particular
order
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Strong Versus
Weak Situations
Strong situations demand people act in
particular ways. (injunctive)
Examples: Funeral, job interview
Weak situations allow people to
behave in many different ways.
Examples: Nightclub, picnic
(descriptive)
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Culture
Culture –
the beliefs, customs, habits, and
language shared by people living in
a particular time and place
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Culture
Cultural Scripts –
Culture influences not only the
extent to which everyday situations
are governed by socially accepted
scripts, but also the content of those
scripts. (page 61-62)
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Culture
Individualist culture –
a culture that socializes its members
to think of themselves as
individuals, and to give priority to
their own personal goals
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Culture
Collectivist culture –
a culture that socializes its members
to think of themselves as members
of a larger group, and to place the
group’s concerns before their own
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Culture
Where would you rank the following
five countries on individualism?
Canada

#4
South Korea

#44
United States

#1
Japan

#22
Mexico

#32
(Hofstede, 1983)
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The Person and the
Situation Interact
Different Persons Respond Differently to
the Same Situation
Situations Choose the Person
Persons Choose Their Situations
Different Situations Prime Different Parts
of the Person
Persons Change The Situation
Situations Change the Person
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Different Persons Respond
Differently to the Same Situation
Different people are attuned to
different parts of a situation, and the
same situation means different
things to different people.
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Different Persons Respond
Differently to the Same Situation
Imagine you’ve agreed to participate
in an experiment studying the
psychology of sports performance.
The study involves a golf-like putting
task.
How do you think you’d do?
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Different Persons Respond
Differently to the Same Situation
Two groups of students were asked to
perform this exact putting task.
The first group was told the task
measured “natural athletic ability.”
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Different Persons Respond
Differently to the Same Situation
Two groups of students were asked to
perform this exact putting task.
The second group was told the task
measured “sports intelligence.”
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Motivation
Average
number of
strokes
(higher number
indicates worse
performance)
White participants
30
25
20
15
10
5
27.8
23.1
Natural Ability
Sports Intelligence
Black participants
White participants performed worse
than usual when told the test
measured “natural ability.”
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Motivation
Average
number of
strokes
(higher number
indicates worse
performance)
White participants
30
25
20
15
10
5
27.8
27.2
23.1
Natural Ability
23.3
Sports Intelligence
Black participants
Black participants performed worse
than usual when told the test
measured “sports intelligence.”
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Motivation
Average
number of
strokes
(higher number
indicates worse
performance)
White participants
30
25
20
15
10
5
27.8
27.2
23.1
Natural Ability
23.3
Sports Intelligence
Black participants
Both groups appeared to do worse
when they had to worry about reenforcing pre-existing stereotypes.
Stone et al. (1999)
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Motivation
Average
number of
strokes
(higher number
indicates worse
performance)
White participants
30
25
20
15
10
5
27.8
27.2
23.1
Natural Ability
23.3
Sports Intelligence
Black participants
These findings illustrate how
different people respond
differently in the same situations.
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Different Persons Respond
Differently to the Same Situation
Person-Situation fit –
the extent to which a person and a
situation are compatible
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Focus on Application: Person
Situation Fit in the Workplace
When employees’ personal
characteristics – interests, goals,
abilities, traits – fit with the
demands and opportunities of their
occupations, employees are happier
and more likely to stay at their jobs.
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Focus on Application: Person
Situation Fit in the Workplace
Other research illustrates the value of
having the person fit not just the job
but the organization’s culture.
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Situations Choose the Person
Example: Athletic teams have slots for
only so many players, so not
everyone gets the experience of
playing on the team.
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Persons Choose Their Situations
We choose situations that provide
opportunities that fit with our
personal characteristics.
Example: If you are an introvert, a quiet
evening at home might be more
appealing than a crowded rock
concert.
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Different Situations Prime
Different Parts of the Person
Inside each one of us there are
different motives, memories, and
feelings.
Each of these is likely to be triggered
by some situations more than others.
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Different Situations Prime
Different Parts of the Person
Example: After watching a slapstick
comedy that primes memories of
innocent accidents, an ambiguous
collision with a stranger may draw one
reaction:
(“Oops. How clumsy of me!”)
But a blow-em-up action thriller may
trigger your inner Rambo:
(“Hey! How dare you bump into me!”)
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Persons Change The Situation
Sometimes people change situations to
better achieve their goals.
(a teacher will set up her class so that her
students get along)
Other times people change situations
inadvertently.
(depressed college students may depress
their roommates)
(Joiner & Metalsky, 1996) (Strack & Coyne, 1983)
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Situations Change the Person
You may be a different person after
spending time in a situation.
Example: Two similar high school
students may be very different after
one spends four years in the military
while the other is in a liberal arts
college.
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Situations Change the Person
Socialization –
the process through which a culture
teaches its members about its
beliefs, customs, habits, and
language
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