Unfinished Business

 There are TWO classes this week –  tonight  December 4 (to make up for Remembrance Day)  Test #3  webCT exam dates: Dec 8 (10:00) - Dec 13 (5:00)  change in room: E610, E620 and E630

Review Question 1

You meet a 36 year old man who is a chain smoker. What might Freud say about this person?

A. He is fixated at the anal stage.

B. He is caught in an Oedipus complex.

C. He has an oral personality.

D. He has a phallic personality. Answer: C

Review Question 2

Rotter’s theory of _____ focused on people’s differing beliefs that their efforts will result in positive outcomes.

A. Personal control B. Personal constructs C. The locus of control D. The cognitive-affective personality system Answer: C

Personal Control

Internal Locus of Control

You pretty much control your own destiny

External Locus of Control

Luck, fate and/or powerful others control your destiny

Methods of Study

• Correlate feelings of control with behavior • Experiment by raising/lowering people’s sense of control and noting effects

Review Question 3

How is the study of personality different from the study of behaviour or biological processes?

A. One cannot use objective means to study personality.

B. The study of personality does not lend itself to explanation, only description.

C. Personality cannot be directly observed.

D. Personality is a false construct that has no place in science. Answer: C

Review Question 4

Which of the following is related to a higher degree of consistency in behaviour?

A. High self-monitoring B. Low self-monitoring C. Extraversion D. Neuroticism Answer: B

Review Question 5

The personality traits of shyness, fearfulness and anxiousness have been associated with a. The frontal lobes b. The amygdala c. The pons d. The reticular system Answer: b

Self-Concept

 Is a cognitive knowledge structure  schema (self-schema)  network of interconnected knowledge about oneself  cognitive aspect of self-concept  integrated set of memories, beliefs and generalizations about oneself

Self-Schema

Self-Concept

 working self-concept  varies as function of:  which memories you retrieve,  which situation you are in,  your role in that situation,  people you are with etc.

Inter/Independent Self-Concepts

 some cultures place greater emphasis on the collective self than on the personal self  interdependent  view self inherently connected to other people  self-concept defined more by social roles and personal relationships

Inter/Independent Self-Concepts

 some cultures place greater emphasis on the personal self  Independent  view self fundamentally separate from others  sense of self based on feelings of being distinct from others

Interdependent/Collective Self

 Advantages  Disadvantages

Independent/Personal Self

 Advantages  Disadvantages

Self-Esteem



Evaluative aspect of self-concept



emotional response as evaluate different characteristics about themselves



internalize values and beliefs expressed by important people in their lives (“reflected appraisals”)

Self-Esteem



Sociometer theory (Leary et al)

 humans have need to belong  self-esteem monitors the likelihood of social exclusion  acts as internal monitor of social acceptance/rejection  is research support  low self-esteem highly correlated with social anxiety

Sociometer Theory

Biological Basis of Self-Esteem

 Twin studies - self-esteem moderately inheritable  traits associated with self-esteem such as extraversion and neuroticism have genetic components  serotonin levels affect self-esteem  increased activity leads to increased self esteem/confidence

Maintaining Self-Esteem

 Strategies  self-evaluative maintenance  exaggerate or publicize connections to winners  minimize or hide relations to losers  distance self from someone who outperforms them on task that is personally relevant  biased comparisons  evaluate self by contrasting actions, abilities and beliefs with others to see where they stand

Biased Comparisons

 downward comparison  contrast self with people who are “deficient” on relevant dimentions  upward comparison  contrast self with people who are superior

Downward Comparison with Past Self

Maintaining Self-Esteem

 Strategies  self-serving biases  high achievers  take credit for success  blame failure on outside factors  low achievers  attribute success on outside factors  blame failure on personal factors

Attitudes

 “Evaluation of objects or ideas to indicate like or dislike toward them”

Attitudes develop through:

 direct experience/exposure  “mere exposure effect”  classical conditioning  advertising - pair positive image with product

Attitudes develop through:

 direct experience/exposure  “mere exposure effect”  classical conditioning  advertising - pair positive image with product  operant conditioning  rewarded for behaviour

Attitudes develop through:

 socialization  Would you eat a worm?

 Heritability  genetic predisposition  attitudes towards death penalty, jazz, censorship and apartheid have high heritability components but not coeduation and straightjackets  inherit physiological characteristics that lead to certain responses

Attitudes Predicting Behaviour

 When  more personally relevant  the more specific the attitude is  formed through direct experience  in line with normative social values  when expression does not lead to embarrassment

Attitudes Predicting Behaviour

 implicit attitudes  influence behaviour and feelings at unconscious level

Implicit Attitudes Test

https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/  People possess dual attitudes:  one automatic and unconscious  one explicit

Cognitive Dissonance

(Festinger)  Contradiction between two attitudes or between an attitude and behaviour  creates anxiety and tension  shapes behaviour and perception to maintain cognitive dissonance  ignore behaviour that refutes/contradicts our beliefs  accept uncritically info that confirms them

Cognitive Dissonance: Cars

 Should the government be allowed to restrict car sales based on their gas use?  P. 87 instructors manual

Cognitive Dissonance

(Festinger)  motivated to reduce anxiety and tension  change attitudes  change behaviours  rationalize or trivialize discrepancy

Which group experienced more dissonance? Which group rated the task more highly?

Cognitive Dissonance Worksheet

Dissonance and Cars

 Arguments for banning gas-guzzling cars by those who agree with this position  Arguments for allowing gas-guzzlding cars by those who don’t agree with this position -

Confirmation-Hypercriticality Effect

 If logical, would evaluate the sensible arguments from each side and discard those that were ludicrous or just wrong  Cognitive Dissonance theory predicts:  will remember plausible arguments supporting own position  will remember ridiculous arguments supporting opposing position Pattern supported theory.

Changing Attitudes

 Elaboration likelihood model to explain how persuasion leads to attitude change -

Persuasion in advertising

 Advertising to children  Botox Cosmetics radio/magazine Ad

Forming Attitudes about Others

 Impression formation  attributions  causal explanations for why events or actions occur  basic need for order and predictability in lives  just world hypothesis  “blame the victim”

Attributional Dimensions

 Personal attributions  internal or dispositional attributions  situational attributions  external attributions  other dimensions  stable vs variable  controllable vs uncontrollable etc.

Attributional Dimensions

 Actor-observer discrepancy  biased towards situational explanations when explaining own behaviour  the bus was early; my roommate took too long in the shower; the traffic was backed up on Whoop up  biased towards dispositional/personal factors when explaining behaviour of others  he’s lazy

Stereotypes can be Self-Fulfilling

Interpersonal Processes

Chap 14

Fundamental Need to Belong  Theory says need to belong is a fundamental motive “that activates behaviour and influences cognition and emotion” (p. 452  supported by anxiety felt when exluded  social exclusion theory  anxiety warns individuals may be facing rejection from group

Need to Belong

 Social dilemna  need to belong - cooperate which maximizes long-term interests  selfishness - maximizes short-term interests  “cheater detectors”  abilities in social relationships/situations

Impression Management

 Self-presentation - how we exhibit our personal characteristics before an audience  differences in extent of self-presentation  high in self-monitoring  low in self-monitoring

Sycophant - groveling flatterer

Ingratiation

Groups Influencing Individuals

 Social facilitation

Conformity

Two Influential Studies

 Milgram’s obedience study  Prison Experiment

http://designweb.otago.ac.nz/grant/psyc/OBEDIANCE.HTML

http://home.swbell.net/revscat/perilsOfObedience.htm

http://www.prisonexp.org/

Bystander Apathy

 Kitty Genovese  38 witnesses who watched it happen  none called police/tried to intervene  Lethbridge

Bystander Intervention Effect

 Diffusion of responsibility  ambiguous situation (potential social blunder)  anonymous vs identifiable  cost-benefit trade off

Relationships

 Proximity  familiarity/mere exposure effect  similarity  admirable personality characteristics  physical attractiveness

EARLY STAGE INTENSE ROMANTIC LOVE ACTIVATES CORTICAL-BASAL-GANGLIA REWARD/MOTIVATION, EMOTION AND ATTENTION SYSTEMS: AN FMRI STUDY OF A DYNAMIC NETWORK THAT VARIES WITH RELATIONSHIP LENGTH, PASSION INTENSITY AND GENDER H. Fisher 1 , A. Aron 2 , D. Mashek 2 , G. Strong 2 , H. Li 3 and L.L. Brown 4 1 Department of Anthropology, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA 2 Department of Psychology/ 3 Department of Radiology, SUNY Stony Brook, Stony Brook, NY, USA 4 Department of Neurology & Department of Neuroscience, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, USA

INTRODUCTION

Early-stage romantic love is a specific and intensely orienting state, a cross-culturally universal phenomenon, and possibly a developed form of a mammalian drive to pursue preferred mates. Question: Is romantic love an emotion or a motivation? Bartels and Zeki (2000) did a similar study, although of longer-term, less intense romantic love. They regarded it as an emotion. We hypothesized that it was a motivation to acquire a goal, a specific mating partner (Aron and Aron, 1991).

Question: Is romantic love associated with dopaminergic systems (Fisher, 1998), as is partner preference in prairie voles (Gingrich et al., 2000)?

1 Specific group activations: Reward, attention and motivation (‘wanting’) systems Random effects analyses 2 3 Activity correlated with facial attractiveness (‘liking’) in the

left VTA

Activity correlated with length of relationship 725.27

4 Men and women tended to be different in a few areas A working model of parallel systems activation during intense romantic attraction

METHODS

Participants:

Seventeen (7 Male / 10 Female) right- handed neurologically normal volunteers who reported being intensely in love.

Stimuli: Photograph

of the beloved (

Positive

)

Photograph

of a familiar acquaintance (

Neutral

)

Count-Back

task (count back by 7 from…) (

Counts

)

Interviews

: one week before and immediately after scan

Instructions:

think about him/her, recall events related to the beloved

Questionnaires

:

Passionate Love Scale

(Hatfield and Sprecher,1986)

Affect Intensity Measure

(Larsen and Diener, 1987)

Imaging:

1.5T Marconi (Phillips) Edge MRI system

Voxels

: 3.75 x 3.75 x 4.0 mm, 20 axial BOLD and T1 images

Design:

Neutral (30 sec), Counts1(20 sec), Positive (30 sec), Counts2 (40 sec); 6 repetitions, 12 minutes

Data analysis:

statistics.

SPM99 for individual, group and correlation

Contrasts:

Positive Neutral

minus

Positive Counts

minus

8,421 Count Back By 7 C, caudate. VTA, ventral tegmental area. mPFC, medial prefrontal cortex. PC, posterior cingulate. p ≤.002, uncorrected except VTA, p=.01

The VTA response shown in the time course resembles that of dopamine cell firing to a familiar reward and withdrawal of reward. The nucleus accumbens was equally activated by the Positive and Neutral stimuli.

AC, anterior cingulate. PC, posterior cingulate. GP, globus pallidus. Inf fr, inferior frontal cortex. Our subjects in longer relationships showed a common effect with Bartels and Zeki (2000) in the cingulate and insular cortex. (Our study: mean 7.2 months; Bartels & Zeki, 28.8 mos

p

<.001) Our study and the Bartels and Zeki study showed a common regional effect in the dorsal caudate (data not shown).

C, posterior cingulate. CP, caudate. I, insula. OC, occipital. P, parietal. PF, prefrontal. S/F, septum/fornix.

SP, superior parietal. T, temporal.

Parallel cortical systems converge on caudate (e.g. Brown, 1992, 1998) where activity is enhanced by dopamine, thus attaching behavioral significance to the image of the beloved. Dark circles show greatest convergence in dorsal caudate and tail. (Diagram after Saint-Cyr et al., 1990. Dotted lines= caudate)

CONCLUSIONS

•

Early-stage intense romantic attraction is best categorized as a motivation system associated with varied emotions.

•

Dopamine-rich regions play a major role.

•

"Wanting" and "liking" may be mediated by different regions of the VTA, and also lateralized.

•

Women tend to show activation in regions associated with attention, memory recall and emotion; men tend to show activation in regions associated with integration of visual stimuli and sexual arousal.

•

Romantic attraction is an excellent example of parallel system activation, including convergence of corticostriatal and midbrain dopamine activity in the dorsal caudate nucleus.

•

This research may shed light on several medical and psychological disorders, including stalking and other crimes of passion. Romantic love may also be a useful tool in future studies of human reward mechanisms and memory.

Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love  Love made up of three components:  passion  intimacy  commitment  see p. 480