Last 3 weeks of Class (50% of Final) Flashcards

Question

What is Interpersonal Attraction?

Answer 1

- Interpersonal attraction: the study of attraction or liking between two or more people. - Focus here on dyads

Answer 2

1. Proximity 2. Similarity 3. Physiological Arousal 4. Physical Attractiveness

Answer 3

* MIT students randomly assigned to 1 of 17 buildings in an apartment complex - Looked at friendship in terms of proximity - Previously strangers - Asked who 3 closest friends from the complex were - RESULTS: - 65% of friends mentioned lived in the same building - Those in the same building represented only 5% of all residents - Massively influenced by those closer to them - People more likely to have closer friendship with those closest to them → next door, → linear, goes down with each door further from them

Answer 4

- Opportunity for interactions - We are more likely to meet and interact with people who are physically close by– the more we interact, the more likely we will become friends - Mere exposure effect - We tend to like novel stimuli more after we have been repeatedly exposed to them (i.e., familiarity)

Answer 5

- In attitudes - In personality - In appearance - Hinsz (1986) Study: Participants rated facial similarity of photographs of couples or random pairs - **Results**: Actual couples rated as more similar than random pairs

Answer 6

- Speed-Dating Study - Assessed similarity before and after each date - Perceived similarity – compared self-ratings to ratings of partner (rate yourself and then ratings from your partner) - Actual similarity – compared self- ratings of each partner - Results: perceived similarity (not actual) → romantic liking

Answer 7

- Facilitates smooth interactions (similar attitudes, less conflicts of interest) - Similar others have qualities we like; dissimilar others are “unreasonable.” - We dislike people who are dissimilar to us even more than we like people who are similar (negativity bias) - We expect similar others to like us - Reciprocity- we tend to like those who like us → I like them, they must like me

Answer 8

Link between misattribution of arousal and bridge study - 85 men visited one of two bridges: - Suspension bridge (scary) vs. Control bridge (not scary) - Attractive female experimenter asks them to fill out survey - Gives her phone number in case they have later questions about the survey they just did - DV was how many men ended up calling the female experimenter - Results: - compared to people who crossed the control bridge (13%), 50% who crossed the scary bridge ended up calling the female experimenter - Misattribution of arousal → scary bridge made them aroused (heart racing) → when they encountered the experimenter they made a secondary appraisal (wrong) and said that their arousal was probably due to the experimenter (salient stimulus)

Answer 9

- Facial symmetry: We prefer symmetrical faces (seen across cultures and ethnic groups) - Beyonce - Can take the mirror image of her face and it lines up extremely well. - She has a very symmetrical face - High degree of symmetry - Very culturally accepted beautiful face RECALL: What is beautiful? - Lots of ideas, seemingly related - Symmetry - Averageness - Divine proportions (patterns in nature) - Balance - Prototype - In effect, patterns and rules that you expect and know - We know this because of cultural differences

Answer 10

- People in different cultures are attracted to those who exemplify the traits that their culture values. - Standards of beauty vary over time. - Cultures vary in the kind of ornamentation people use to enhance their attractiveness.

Answer 11

- **High-status attributes in a given culture are often viewed as more attractive.** - Skin tones - Body size and weight

Answer 12

SEE IMAGES of Jesus - first one left is first attempt on how Jesus might have looked with their computer rendering at the time and area he would have lived - Slowly start seeing lighter skin tone, beard, longer hair - Now Jesus made attractive, symmetrical

Answer 13

- Both high status individuals looks quite different - Both valued for the way that they look

Answer 14

- Women: Signs of fertility (e.g., waist-to-hip ratio) - Facial features: large eyes, full lips, small nose, prominent cheekbones, high eyebrows, broad smile - Youth and maturity Waist-to-Hip Ratio - When people are asked to judge which of these women is most attractive, the average preference is usually a woman with a 0.7 ratio of waist to hip. - Over time, standards of attractiveness for the overall size of women’s bodies have changed, but the ideal of a 0.7 waist-to-hip ratio has remained fairly constant. - Associated with hormone balance (estrogen and progesterone) linked with better fertility and better health FOR MEN - Gender differences: Evolutionary Perspective: - Men: Signs of masculinity and power - Facial features: prominent cheekbones, large chin (higher levels of testosterone usually lead to these features) - Provide resources and protect - Testosterone

Answer 15

Power of the situation on attractiveness. - 103 women and men recruited from local bars near a university in the southern U.S. - Asked: on a scale from 1-10 on attractiveness, how would you rate the men/women in here (the bar) tonight? And did it at 3 time points: - 9:00 pm - 10:30 pm - Midnight (half hour before close) - Found that compared to 9:30 and 10:30, at midnight, the attractiveness of the bar went up a whole point 5/10 → 6/10 - Same people, same attractiveness but the situation they were in lead to them rating them as more attractive in general

Answer 16

- Attractiveness Halo Effect: Tendency to believe that attractive people also have other, unrelated positive traits. We think that attractive people are - Happier - Warmer - More healthy - More outgoing - More mature - More intelligent - More sensitive - More confident - More successful - Not actually true, but… - Self-fulfilling prophecy: Attractive people…. - Report more satisfying interactions with others - School work evaluated more favourably - Earn more money (especially men) - Receive more help from others (especially women) - Receive lighter prison sentences

Answer 17

Evolutionary psychology argues that gender differences in mate preference would be as follows (e.g. Buss, 2003; Singh, 1993): - Men are motivated to find a fertile mate and threatened by paternal uncertainty. - Women must be selective because biologically limited in child bearing and look for men who possess resources or traits predictive of it.\ - Large survey of about 10,000 men and women in 37 different cultures revealed that (see Buss, 1989): - Men and women both valued kindness as one of the most important traits along with others such as dependability and sense of humour. - Adapted from Fletcher et al., 2013 - Research also suggests an asymmetry in jealousy of sexual versus emotional infidelity (e.g. Buss, 2003; 2000; Shackelford et al., 2004; Dijkstra & Buunk, 1998). - E.g., women rate emotional infidelity as more threatening than men. - Men more jealous of partner flirting with a dominant man, while women more jealous of partner flirting with a young attractive woman.

Answer 18

No! - Socio-cultural factors may also help explain these findings: - Women’s preference for status may be driven by their lack of access to resources (e.g. Wood & Eagly, 2002; Zentner & Mitura, 2012). - Supported by evidence that preference lower in countries with more equal distribution of economic resources. - Also, gap between stated preference and actual preference (weak attitude-behaviour link; e.g. Finkel & Eastwick, 2008). - Although men sought attractive partners and women sought partners with earning prospects, no real differences in actual preferences in speed dating context.

Answer 19

- This area of research and the textbook contain a large quantity of evolutionary theorizing - Important to know that there are different explanations - “Universality” in mate selection may not be so universal - Social context matters - Gender differences can be modulated by certain social contexts - Evolutionary or sociocultural explanations are not all correct or wrong, but rather both may interactively be at play, or operate at different levels (e.g., proximal vs distal) - The way we talk about gender differences isn’t actually how we talk about it - Usually smaller - eg. research on risk-taking: - literature very much says men are riskier than women but prof has done lots of studies and found no big difference between men and women

Answer 20

- Sex an important part of relationships - Indicator of romantic connection - Personality plays a big part! - A wife’s agreeableness predicts probability - A husband’s low neuroticism and low openness and a wife’s low neuroticism associated with satisfaction - Gives a picture of security, stability, and the importance of the wife’s role

Answer 21

- Sex might increase connection, and have protective effects - The punchline: more sex, better relationship - Most beneficial for attachment insecurity and neuroticism! - Protective factor - As sexual satisfaction goes up, the anxious people start to look like the low anxious people - These are the people who are anxious in the relationship and they become more like their less-anxious counterparts - Liner relationships with sex - More sex in relationship → leads to increased satisfaction in life in general

Answer 22

- According to self-expansion theory, engaging in activities with a romantic partner that broaden one’s sense of self and perspective of the world (e.g., novel, exciting, interesting, and challenging activities) can reignite feelings of exhilaration and passion reminiscent of when couples first fell in love (Muise et al., 2018) - In other words: Try new things together (out of the bedroom)

Answer 23

- Muise randomly assigns people to one of three conditions (self-expansion; familiar and comfortable; control) - Exercise of self-expansion - >thinking about a new novel experience they had - Found the self-expansion is related both to relationship satisfaction and increased sexual desire to one’s own romantic partner → this generally increases relationship satisfaction - self-expansion led to more sexual desire, more relationship satisfaction and sexual satisfaction than familiar and comfortable and control condition.

Answer 24

- Relational Happiness - Research on couples -> trying to predict who would break up. - "Came up with the 4 Horsemen of Relational Apocalypse" 1. **Criticism** – telling partner his/her faults 2. **Contempt** – superiority; being sarcastic, rolling eyes 3. **Defensiveness** – denying responsibility 4. **Stonewalling** – withdrawing/avoiding partner - Emphasized Nonverbal Bids

Answer 25

- Affectionate touching - back slap, handshake, pat, squeeze, etc. - Facial expression - Playful touching - Affiliating gestures – opening a door, handing over a utensil or tool - Vocalizing – laughing, grunting, sighing (when your partner says something) - Common denominator is being aware of your partner and just responding through nonverbal bids RELATIONSHIP CURE: - Newlyweds, busted bids, and divorce (65 vs.15% of successful bids) - Got couples to practice fielding bids for emotional connection. - Practice sending good bids, not lame ones. - FOUND that you could take these couples and they had different communication patterns. - They both start at 0 and were told to discuss an issue. - What was measured was the positive and negative turns of the conversation in terms of their partner ? - Low risk couple starts trending upwards in terms of being positive - For the high risk couple, it just gets more and more negative - This was classified based on successful and busted bids

Answer 26

- Foster mutual support (including emotional support) and growth - Responsiveness is important in good times and bad! - Share novel & enjoyable experiences together

Answer 27

1. **Passionate love**: Feelings of intense longing with physiological arousal; when it is reciprocated, we feel fulfillment and ecstasy, and when it is not, we feel despair - the spark! 1. **Companionate love**: Feelings of intimacy and affection we feel for another person about whom we care deeply.

Answer 28

- **Passionate love**: passion starts high then decreases over time - starts high then decreases over time - **Companionate love**: intimacy starts low and gradually increases over time

Answer 29

- Companionate love is long-lasting - Lauer & Lauer (1985): - Surveyed couples married for 15+ years - “Why did your marriage last?” - Top 2 answers: - “My spouse is my best friend.” - “I like my spouse as a person.

Answer 30

- Any physical or verbal behavior that is intended to harm another person or persons (or any living thing) - Harm can be physical or psychological

Answer 31

Intent. - Aggression requires an intention to harm - Can be a deliberate action or a deliberate failure to act - **Violence**: Acts of aggression with more severe consequences

Answer 32

**Violence**: Acts of aggression with more severe consequences

Answer 33

- **Affective aggression**: Harm-seeking done to another person that is elicited in response to some negative emotion - eg. when sb cuts you off while driving and you go and cut them off (you’re flying off the handle) - **Instrumental aggression:** Harm-seeking done to another person that serves some other goal

Answer 34

- **Affective aggression**: Harm-seeking done to another person that is elicited in response to some negative emotion - eg. when sb cuts you off while driving and you go and cut them off (you’re flying off the handle)

Answer 35

Harm-seeking behaviour done to another person that serves some other goal.

Answer 36

- TRUST GAME: - 1 round: Investor (P1) can give $ to trustee (P2) - $ increases - Trustee can give back some (investor profits) or none - ‘Rational’ choice = Invest $0 (trustee should never return money) (is on the left top → Nash equilibrium → should know that P2 is rational and should take the 20 over the 10, so if that’s true I should not trust P2 and so I should not send the money) - Actual = Invest $ - Trustee returns profit - Actual is that we share it

Answer 37

- Trust Game - Previously: Striatal activation during Trust Game - Trustee caudate activated after investee trust behaviour - Caudate signalled ‘intention to trust’ - Caudate activation = learned trust as reward - Donating and observing donation to charity also activates striatum - De Quervain - Investor inflict punishment where the investor keeps everything = exact same caudate activation - Punishment feels rewarding…! - inflicting punishment on sb else feels rewarding

Answer 38

- **Eros**: Freud’s term for what he proposed is the human inborn instinct to seek pleasure and to create - **Thanatos**: Freud’s term for what he proposed is the human inborn instinct to aggress and to destroy. - **Displacement and Catharsis** - we don’t like to see thanatos in ourselves so we do either of these two things - **Jung’s Shadow**: the dark side of personality, can be positive, but is mostly negative because it is the hidden and unwanted part of ourselves - one response to seeing this in ourselves is projection - **Projection** - And the destruction of things embodying those unwanted aspects

Answer 39

- Counter to psychodynamics - When aggressive actions result in desired attention, specific rewards, or alleviating negative feelings, they become more likely. - Aggressive actions can create dissonance, which leads to attitude shifts that justify actions. - they’re not longer bad, they’re good → here’s why - Social Learning Theory: People learn by watching the actions of others (Bandura, 1973). - RECALL: BOBO doll study - Opposite of catharsis or displacement! - the more we engage in aggressive behaviours the more likely we are to do them

Answer 40

- Psychoanalytics - We are a dark being, we have this aggressive harm-causing unconscious that we have to wrestle with - Behaviourism - We are like a pigeon: we do something → are rewarded → do it more.

Answer 41

- We are relatively unimportant in terms of population growth and decline - In terms of periods of life on earth, we’re essentially a pixel of history on Earth - In terms of the Universe, we are just part of a planet that is a part of an observable universe - We are essentially nothing in the universe

Answer 42

- Existence is a bummer (exisentialists) - Existence unmoored from meaning - Religious authority undermined - However, we aware! (and that sets us apart) - This capability and struggle for meaning elevates and unites us - ‘Know Thyself’ (Hypocrates)

Answer 43

- Escape from the dilemma of existence - Don’t worry about the meaning of life - Don’t try to think for yourself - Don’t examine your life; do what society, convention, peers, etc., tell you to do. - Living in bad faith: ignoring the existential questions and ignoring our moral imperative

Answer 44

- Escape from the angst of freedom by - 1. Impersonal identity - Conform to a social ideal (eg. stereotype, prototype, conforming to an ideal of how an individual should behave) - Removes the burden of choice - eg. Hipsters → claimed high level of individuality but all look the same → escaping into an impersonal identity - 2. Authoritarianism - Submission to external power (eg. group or social institution) - Nietzsche's herd mentality - 3. Destruction (aggression itself) - The source of angst is the world - Eliminate that world - eg. trolling behaviour → to break things down, to destroy.

Answer 45

- Evolutionary basis for aggression (e.g. Daly & Wilson, 1996; 2005; Hobart,, 1991): - Male aggressors more likely to obtain resources and attract mates through higher status, thereby increasing odds of reproductive success. - Females from an evolutionary perspective protect offspring and therefore use indirect means. - protective aggression - Social animals can coordinate against other groups - Violent takeover of territory - chimpanzee attack on other chimpanzees in the area where they basically engage in war - Increased aggression found in step families. - Children younger than 2 years 100 times more likely to suffer lethal abuse in hands of step parent than genetic parent even controlling for several factor. - the idea is that genetic material is sth you want to pass on so you’re less likely to aggress against a child you’re genetically related to

Answer 46

- Behavioural genetics basis for aggression (e.g. Coccaro et al., 1997; Miles & Carey, 1997; Hines & Saudino, 2002): - E.g., identical twins show greater overlap in aggression and irritability than fraternal twins or siblings. - increased genetic material being shared, increased aggressive traits - However, twin studies reveal overlap in physical, but not relational aggression. - Meta-analysis suggests that genetic factors account for an important portion of the variance in aggression. - does seem to be a genetic component

Answer 47

- Research confirms physiological mechanisms involved in the detection of social threat, the experience of anger, and engaging in aggressive behaviou r. **Brain regions** - *Dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC)*: Detection of social threat; unjustified wrongdoings - *Hypothalamus and amygdala:* Anger and fear (emotions that evoke threat)

Answer 48

- This brain area is active when people detect actions and outcomes that interfere with their goals, including social threats. - See frustration → aggression link (later)

Answer 49

- The hypothalamus and the amygdala are two brain regions that play a key role in people’s emotional experiences of fear and anger and prepare them for a fight-or-flight response. - flight is more likely when there is somewhere to go → if you can get out of there. - flight is less sensitive to obstacles → rats will crash through barriers to get out - Meanwhile, fight arises more often when there is no avenue out. - Adrenaline (epinephrine) and Noradrenaline (norepinephrine)

Answer 50

The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and medial prefrontal cortex help regulate impulses, share connections with the limbic system, and contain serotonin receptors.

Answer 51

- Sex hormone - Development of primary and secondary male sex characteristics - About ~10 times higher concentration in men - Link with aggression is complex - Mostly a positive relationship, however… - testosterone also plays a role in control and inhibition of aggression and sexuality - BEST DESCRIPTION: - Energizer; accentuates existing behavioural tendencies

Answer 52

- Looked at mothers with pregnancy complications who received testosterone therapy or not - Looked at the children’s behaviours in terms of aggression - Boys were more aggressive than girls in general - The girls who received testosterone therapy in utero matched with or looked like boys (in terms of aggression) who did not received in utero therapy. Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia and 'Boy's Toys": In Utero Testosterone and Active Play Preferences (Berenbaum and Hines, 1992, Psychological Science) - If there was exposure → testosterone therapy → no difference in preference for boys’ toys between girls and boys.

Answer 53

- length of the index finger compared to the ring finger. -> Average male: Low 2D: 4D: Index finger shorter than the ring finger. -> Typical female: Equal 2D: 4D -> index and ring fingers are equal length -> High 2D:4D Index finger longer than ring finger SEE IMAGES - Lower 2D:4D ratio (as seen in men) correlates with: - good visual and spatial performance (Bull et al., 2010) - athletic achievement (Tester and Campbell 2007) - dominance and masculinity (Neave et al. 2003) - sensation seeking and psychoticism (Austin et al. 2002) - Characteristics typically associated with women correlate with higher 2D:4D ratio - verbal fluency (Manning 2002) - emotional problems (Williams et al. 2003) - neuroticism (Austin et al. 2002) → however, a lot of this stuff needs to be replicated, studies on it are old → probably not popular anymore bc it doesn’t replicate well (suspicion)

Answer 54

- **Original version:** Aggression is always preceded by frustration, and that frustration inevitably leads to aggression (Dollard et al., 1939) - **Revised** to suggest that frustration produces an emotional readiness to aggress (Harris, 1974) - The hypothesis has received cross-cultural support.

Answer 55

- Context - Priming - Culture - Physical threat - Psychological conflict

Answer 56

- The context can be more or less frustrating - Researchers looked at how the temperature it is outside can increase aggression - Looked at baseball players and how the temperature affected how aggressive they played. - It becomes more likely that the pitchers will throw at opposing team’s batters. - looked at temperature and how often the pitcher’s hit the batters on the opposing team. - As temperature goes up, the effects get stronger. - The hotter the temp, the more they engaged in this aggressive behaviour.

Answer 57

- Situational cues which prime hostile concepts and feelings can lead to aggression. - Weapons effect: The tendency for the presence of firearms to increase the likelihood of aggression, especially when people are frustrated.

Answer 58

- Berkowitz and LePage’s (1967) classic weapons effect study shows that participants became the most aggressive when they were in a condition in which they were both angered and in the presence of a gun and a rifle, administering an especially large number of shocks to another person. - Had participants come in. Weapons were either present or not. (did this in 2 areas) - While walking to a location, they walked by a table either with a weapon on it or something else. - Angered before by a researcher who is rude, and after seeing the gun, the participants were more likely to shock higher in learner study.

Answer 59

- For some people (e.g., sport hunters), guns are not cues to aggression, but most Americans are not recreational hunters. - Gun-related homicides occur at a much higher rate in the United States than in other industrialized nations. - Switzerland??? - high level of gun ownership but low homicide - mandatory military service from 18-20 → these people would get on the train and put their guns on the train and sit down - so kind of confusing - people less frustrated in Switzerland?

Answer 60

- **Culture influences the extent of aggression within a society.** - **Among national cultures** - United States: Murder rate is double the world average; aggression used to solve interpersonal conflict; availability of firearms; individualistic - whereas in Switzerland that is not culturally encouraged - No single set of variables that accounts for a given nation’s violence record. - **Within nations** - Culture of honour, especially in United States South and West - Status protection - insults to honour require a response - Gangs

Answer 61

- While walking down the hallway, sb shoulders them in the insult condition - In condition 3, is a very large intimidating man who shouldn’t be shouldered → measures how close the insult condition person shoulders the scary man → in insult condition → decreased distance between the big person coming down the hallway - Seems to be a link between threat, frustration, and aggression

Answer 62

- **Physical: Attack** - Perception of imminent, intentional physical or verbal attack is the most reliable provocation of an aggressive response. - Fight or Flight system - **Psychological: Insult and social rejection** - eg. Cyberball study → person was furious with 2 strangers when she was rejected in a game of catch - Insults and social rejection can arouse anger and the impulse to aggress to protect self-esteem. - People high in rejection sensitivity tend to expect, readily perceive, and overreact to rejection with aggressive responses. (higher sensitivity, higher aggression) - **Narcissism and unstable self-esteem…**

Answer 63

- Brought in the importance of the forces outside of you and your interactions with those things - Called push and pull - Behaviour is a function of personality and the environment - Looked in children → disagreement between the push and pull lead to aggression in children - Eg. children would go to sit down on this rock → but would lose sight of it → would look again and try to sit, then turn around and look again because they couldn’t sit down on it → felt too scared to sit because they couldn’t see it

Answer 64

- Drives towards things we want (Approach) and drives away from things we don’t want (Avoid) - Drives can conflict - Approach-Avoidance Conflict - eg. you see a delicious cake but you know you shouldn’t eat a bunch of cake; driving real fast is exciting; being told not to do sth makes you want to do it - RECALL: Key motives lecture and conflicts - Drives can be blocked - eg. approach approach → you want this, you want that → but if you take one you can’t take the other. - Frustration – Aggression hypothesis - Aggression after frustration has utilitized - Can help remove the block or obstacle → can bash through it - Not always appropriate, however

Answer 65

- **Displaced aggression** is directed toward a target other than the source of one’s frustration. - eg. having a difficult day and coming home and yelling at someone (whatever they did is not that big) - **Triggered displaced aggression** occurs when someone does not respond to an initial frustration but later responds more aggressively than would be warranted to a second event. - bad day, come home and stub your toe, then you kick the table. → take it out on a safer object

Answer 66

- Deal with experimenter one, then passed on to experimenter 2 who is kind of rude. - If you have a nice experimenter to start with and you undergo a frustrating thing and then you meet rude experimenter 2 you rate experimenter 2 as more negative as compared to if you were not frustrated beforehand.

Answer 67

Eg. Narcissism and Noise Blasts - Cyberball reject vs accept - DV: Noise blasts - Max 105 db (lawn mower or motorcycle loud) - give it to a participant or person who was unrelated to the cyberball - you let the narcissist choose the level, you don’t actually administer the blast - Narcissism and rejection → increased dACC and increased noise blast - People who were high in narcissism and were rejected showed increased d ACC activation and administered higher noise blasts.

Answer 68

Aggression and anger are related to approach motivation.

Answer 69

Researchers looked at the idea that anger is actually an approach motivation → geared toward getting what you want. ANGER IS APPROACH - Anger is clearly negative - People don’t like it - Anger and… - Left PFC - ANGER ACTIVATED BY SAME AREA OF BRAIN AS APPROACH MOTIVATION - Approach personality - Reward sensitivity - Maybe the aggressive response is another way to kickstart the approach motivation

Answer 70

- Morals largely concerned with reducing harm (aggression) and promoting prosocial behaviour - However, moral violations seem to unleash increased aggression (due to being frustrated) - As seen in culture of honour studies → when the moral to not threaten someone’s honour is broken → leads to increased aggression - Where do morals come from? - Are morals based on rational, logical prepositions and conclusions? - E.g., Utilitarianism allows discovery of moral behaviour through rationality and observation

Answer 71

(Haidt, 2001) (RECALL: Moral Foundations Theory) - “Julie and Mark are brother and sister. They are traveling together in France on summer vacation from college. One night they are staying alone in a cabin near the beach. They decide that it would be interesting and fun if they tried making love. At the very least it would be a new experience for each of them. Julie was already taking birth control pills, but Mark uses a condom too, just to be safe. They both enjoy making love, but they decide not to do it again. They keep that night as a special secret, which makes them feel even closer to each other. What do you think about that? Was it OK for them to make love? Why?” → Its wrong because ew!!! - there is actually no reason to say why this is wrong → it is wrong because it is. - moral judgements are primarily the result of intuition, rather than reason.

Answer 72

- Morals are largely based in emotion, preceding cognition - Should be intimately linked with anger and aggression, in a couple of ways - As a cause (When one is an observer): - As observer, what we want is violated by another individual - Frustration → aggression - Aggression is turned on the transgressor

Answer 73

- Serve a purpose? - Proximal function vs Distal function - Proximal: Aggression is emotion-driven, irrational, harmful, bad for relationships, etc. - Distal: Aggression serves to help groups or societies cohere - Aggression is turned on those who might hurt the group - if the group is harmed, we start to lose the coherence of the group.

Answer 74

Aggression is emotion-driven, irrational, harmful, bad for relationships, etc.

Answer 75

- Aggression serves to help groups or societies cohere - Aggression is turned on those who might hurt the group - if the group is harmed, we start to lose the coherence of the group.

Answer 76

- Altruistic punishment - Punishment that has no direct benefit but has significant cost for the punisher - Why would people do this? - Anger as a proximal cause - Free riding or not helping the group should make people angry - Anger should then cause increased altruistic punishment → society works bc ppl get frustrated and aggressive → go after the person who wronged them

Answer 77

PROXIMAL FUNCTION OF AGGRESSION - `You decide to invest 16 [5] francs to the project. The second group member invests 14 [3] and the third 18 [7] francs. Suppose the fourth member invests 2 francs to the project. You now accidentally meet this member. Please indicate your feeling towards this person.'‘ - people who invented fair share or unfair share - measured how much people deviated from the group - found that the more free-riding, the angrier people got → increased punishment of the free-riders - RESULTS: Increased anger, increased punishment

Answer 78

DISTAL FUNCTION OF AGGRESSION - You see how much one person puts in, they put in less than you. - So you revise what you’re going to put in, now that person sees how much you put in and they readjust. - Over time, the cooperation goes down and down and down. - Found: that this is what happens with groups as they grow larger (tipping point of 16 ppl) cooperation goes down to 0 - The only time the cooperation was maintained across group size was when punishment was possible for the defectors and when punishment was possible for those who failed to punish the defectors - regardless of group size, the group now cooperated.

Answer 79

PROXIMAL UTILTY OF AGGRESSION. - Player 1 receive $6 - Offers: - SEE IMAGE - Player 2: Accept or Reject - Rational choice = 5,1 - i get 5 and you get 1 - assuming the other person has a number between 1 and 5 → 1 is better than 0 - Actual Offer: Mean ~ 50/50 (3,3) - a spot that is almost fair! - Players Reject: offer < 20% (5,1) - Suggests lack of self-interest (for player 1 & 2) - Fair offers and punishment → indicates that people reject unfair offers despite the fact that it gives them less money. → pure self interest → I will give up my 2 dollars, but I won’t let you have my 4

Answer 80

- Some evidence suggests that altruistic punishment is just that—prosocial, controlled, unselfish, etc - E.g., knock out the right LPFC (lateral prefrontal cortex) with TMS - Reduced rejection rate - RECALL: Self II lecture - RLPFC (right lateral prefrontal cortex) critical in inhibition of (selfish) impulses - Problem: Different reasons for the same behaviour - Prosocial? - Spite? - spite should play a role in some people - Solution: See what these people do in other situations - Dictator Game - Like Ultimatum, but proposer’s distribution is final, no choice, no rejection

Answer 81

- split ppl into 3 things - being unfair - you get nothing I get everything - being fair 50/50 - wanted to look at the percentage of ppl who rejected unequal offers - Idea: fair ppl should care about fairness and reject the unfair offers - The unfair people should maximize self-interest and choose the unfair offer - Found: the unfair group to reject accepting the unfair offer but put out an unfair offer - RESULTS: They’re not taking the unfair offer, not because of concern for unfairness, but because they’re angry.

Answer 82

- Morals appear largely based in emotion, preceding cognition - As a cause: - as observer, what we want or value is violated by another individual - Frustration → aggression - Aggression is turned on the transgressor - As a constraint: - As actor, we feel angst and guilt as our behaviour conflicts with morals and values we cherish and motivates us to… - a. pre-emptively avoid the behaviour altogether (better not, I’ll feel bad about this) - b. repair or address the harm done - An obvious question about our own harmful actions - Would muting emotion when we engage in immoral behaviour increase aggression and violence? - 3 ways that this can occur: 1. Moral disengagement (cognitive) 2. Oxytocin (anxiolytic) - hormonal 3. Personality (impaired emotion systems) - personalities related to muted emotional responses

Answer 83

1. Moral disengagement (cognitive) 2. Oxytocin (anxiolytic) - hormonal 3. Personality (impaired emotion systems) - personalities related to muted emotional responses

Answer 84

- Albert Bandura - RECALL social learning theory - Internalized moral codes and values guide us away from aggression and violence - Aggression and violence conflict with morals, causes self-sanction - Negative emotions like guilt and shame that motivate behavioural change - We can cognitively disengage our morals to allow for immoral acts - disengage our morals from our behaviour.

Answer 85

Three Stages: 1. Reprehensible conduct → moral justification, palliative comparison, euphemistic labelling. - Leads to displacement or responsibility, diffusion of responsibility. 2. Detrimental Effects → Minimize the detrimental effect, ignoring, or misconstruing the consequences; - 3. Victim → Change how we view the target (the victim of our immoral behaviour) - eg. dehumanization - and attribute blame to them

Answer 86

- Moral disengagement leads to aggression proneness -> can lead to rumination of irascibility -> rumination leads to guilt and restitution (GandR) -> GandR can lead to aggression proneness which leads to either rumination, irascibility or delinquent behaviour. If we have moral disengagement leading to a Prosocial behaviour that can lead to either GandR leading to aggression proneness and delinquent behaviour or straight to aggression proneness and from there to ruimination, irascibility or delinquent behaviour.

Answer 87

1. Oxytocin (RECALL relationships lecture) - Oxytoxin → hormone released during pregnancy and physical closeness - Oxytoxin when we engage in close contact with others or hug others → “hug drug” - “MOTHER BEAR DRUG" → promote increased aggression to those who threaten these associations

Answer 88

- Oxytocin sprayed up the nose or placebo spray → found those who received oxytocin in the study were more likely to lie in terms of a coin toss. - Could either get money for yourself or for the group - particularly after oxytocin spray they were more likely to say that the money was for the group when they were going to keep it - More likely to cooperate with group - More aggressive behaviour to outgroup in oxytocin group -> led to high fear of outgroup

Answer 89

- all participants were EAST ASIAN - After given oxytocin, showed increase response to East Asian faces in pain, but no distinction for the outgroup → Caucasian faces in pain

Answer 90

- In prairie voles, oxytocin treatment after birth, enhanced aggression - In mice, oxytocin decreased aggression towards pups, but increased aggression towards intruders - In squirrel monkeys, oxytocin is associated with enhanced territorial aggression - In rats, aggressive tendencies correlate with oxytocin receptor density

Answer 91

- Oxytocin has both positive and negative effects - Hypothesized to promote relationship goals - Including typical strategies for affiliation and social maintenance - Can be both positive and negative - what matters is what kinds of goals you have → can be a good thing or more negative - People who were higher in physical aggressiveness, when took oxytocin, became even higher in inclination towards intimate partner violence; - People in relationship who were either high in physical aggressiveness or low in physical aggressiveness - Found: oxytocin promoted aggressive behaviour in those who were high in physical aggressiveness

Answer 92

IT IS A PERSONALITY CLUSTER THAT CENTRES OF LOW SELF-SANCTIONING - Morals are largely emotion based - We feel that something is wrong, build the rationality later - Disengagement from moral emotions should increase aggression and violence - Similar to moral disengagement (reduced self-sanction, i.e., guilt, shame, anxiety, etc.) - Personality cluster called the dark triad centres on low self-sanctioning: - NARCISSISM: selfishness, lack of empathy - RECALL Narcissism x rejection → Noise blasts - MACHIAVELLIANISM: increased self-regard, inclinations towards exploitation of others to get what we want, disregard for morality - PSYCHOPATHY: harmful to others, impaired empathy, impulsive

Answer 93

- Ted Bundy - Serial killer * “charismatic, ability to verbalize right from wrong but with little to no effect on behaviour (knew what he was doing was wrong), absence of guilt or shame” - Chameleon-like appearance - looked different from one day to the next - "Guilt doesn't solve anything, really.” "I guess I am in the enviable position of not having to deal with guilt.“

Answer 94

- General pop.: 1% could be diagnosed as pyschopathic - Wall Street: 10% - E.g., hedge fund manager Martin Shkreli - Daraprim → he bought up the patents for it and made it $750 a pill from its original price of $13.50 - Life-saving drug in HIV, some cancers, important for immune response - One-of-a-kind drug (only thing that did this) - 13.50→ 750/pill (5455%)

Answer 95

- Impaired emotional system? - Self-report low levels of negative affect - Reduced reactivity to negative stimuli - Faces, sounds, images, negative feedback, etc. - Abnormalities in insula (body sense, disgust) and amygdala (fear, salience)

Answer 96

- Shane & Groat, 2018 - Asked if these abnormalities in insula (body sense, disgust) and amygdala (fear, salience) was an impairment or are they just not using it? - Most studies were using passive task studies → eg. look at a picture, hear audio - (condition 1) Passive viewing of empathy inducing images vs. (condition 2) instruction to increase or decrease emotion - that matches empathy inducing image - Were told to enhance the emotions they’re feeling when they look at it and then rate how they felt - Passive condition → near inactive brain areas for those high in psychopathy to look at these images - Active brain activity for those who were low in psychopathy - Instruct condition: when told to feel the way the images are supposed to make them feel, brain activity in these areas was the same across all levels of psychopathy - RESULT: What they said they felt and what their brains showed they felt, looked the same - RESULT: the idea is that they can do it, they just don’t care to → is ability, but lack of motivation

Answer 97

- Long-standing debate - 4 Horsemen of atheism (Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel C. Dennett and Christopher Hitchens) - that religion evokes more emotional type thinking instead of rational/scientific thinking → could lead to aggression - For them religion was sth that was searing behind a lot of the world’s conflict

Answer 98

- Scholarly individuals promoted idea that religion was an inhibitor of aggression - Religion at its core is a prosocial thing - Anything that was promoting aggression was due to the time and place

Answer 99

- Promotes - divisions between groups and dehumanizes outgroups (non-believers) - illusions of moral superiority and invulnerability - “we have God on our side” - irrational thinking

Answer 100

- People who believe in God/Bible vs Not - 2 studies - Brigham Young 99% belief - Amsterdam students 50% belief - Read biblical passages of God Sanctioned violence vs No mention of God in violent passage - “The assembly fasted and prayed before the LORD and asked ‘‘What shall be done about the sins of our brothers in Benjamin?’’; and the LORD answered them, saying that no such abomination could stand among his people. The LORD commanded Israel to take arms against their brothers and chasten them before the LORD” - DV: Noise blast in RT comp. - Found: participants who were assigned to read God sanctioned passages who also believed in God were administering the highest level of noise blast in this competition with sb else.

Answer 101

- Armstrong: The core of religion is the golden rule - Said that aggression was coming from sth else, the tainted part of religion - But said that at the core was a message/golden rule of compassion - Each religion has the golden rule in some way or another When Religion Decreases Aggression: - Content-free or unadulterated content - Religion without corrupted aspects - A benevolent God to follow - A punitive God to obey - How do you study that? - Prayer (personal) - Primes

Answer 102

- Ppl who beleived in God were provoked or not in the lab then told to deliver noise blasts - Prior to that, they were allowed to either sit and wait quietly or pray - Found: if they prayed before, then they were least likely to deliver high noise blasts when provoked and did - Praying decreased the blaming of others for bad outcomes when provoked, but did not reduce the blaming of others when not provoked.

Answer 103

- Religion is supposed to promote intergroup conflict by cementing tribalism and devaluing nonbelievers - Religion emphasizes God as universal - Moral laws for all - Muslim Palestinian Youth sample - The trolley problem(s) - Save Jewish vs. Palestinian children - DV: ingroup preference - Ppl assigned to read passage about self or Allah/God as universal - FOUND: ppl who were assigned to reading about God as universal, became less biased toward the ingroup - RESULTS: The priming of God was enough to change/reduce the ingroup favourtism

Answer 104

- Priming God → Sb is watching you → behave better - When primed with God → ppl were more generous in dictator game - But when secular primed → also nearly as generous

Answer 105

- Desire to help another, to improve their welfare, regardless of whether we derive any benefit. Helping another without conscious regard for one’s self-interest. - All altruistic behaviour is prosocial behaviour, but not all prosocial behaviour is altruistic behaviour. - eg saving sb bc you know you’ll get recognition for it

Answer 106

- Behaviour that benefits another person - Helping - Giving - eg. resources - Sharing - Cooperating - eg. on a task

Answer 107

- Survival of the Fittest - The “Selfish Gene” - Helping has survival advantages: - Kin Selection - Help your kin = Help your genes - increase prosocial behaviour when we are engaging with sb we’re related to - Reciprocity - Help Strangers = Help your survival chances - by instilling a norm of reciprocity, this allows you to increase your survival chances → eg. you might help me back in the future

Answer 108

- Likelihood or running into a burning building with linear decreasing of shared genetic material - Likelihood extremely high when shared material is .5 (parents, siblings, children) - .25 grandparents - .125 first cousins - None (attractive stangers)

Answer 109

- **Reciprocal helping** - Reciprocity patterns can provide adaptive advantages to individuals and groups (**norms of reciprocity**). - Reciprocal helping can be found in many species. - Reasoned that reciprocity is a high level process → need to control your self-interested desires to maintain the social norm of reciprocities - Used TMS to temporarily knock out parts of brain including rlPRF → partcipants in the rlPFC knock-out condition were less reciprocal when that part of the brain was temporarily off-line - Requires rlPFC (right-lateral pre-frontal cortex)

Answer 110

- “Minimax” strategy - Minimize cost and maximize benefits - Unconscious weighing of costs and rewards - If we can minimize the costs to use and maximize the rewards – we will help - Suggests that true altruism does not exist

Answer 111

- Benefits of helping: - Make us feel good - Avoid punishment for breaking social norms - Social approval of others - Decrease stress (aversive arousal) of seeing someone in need of help - ppl high in empathy tend to have more emotional difficulty and tough times with emotional regulation → more stressed out more often → so if you help sb and think that they will feel less stressed, it helps you feel less stressed - Be reciprocated in future – an investment - Costs of helping: - Physical danger - Pain - Embarrassment - Time consuming

Answer 112

- Daniel Batson (1991) - Empathy - The ability to experience events and emotions the way another person experiences them. - When we feel empathy for a person we will attempt to the help them regardless of what we have to gain (Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis). - empathy is required for altruism - Help motivated by empathy lasts longer than when there is no empathy (help for some other reason, e.g., rewards) - Altruistic or not? E.g., feel good about ourselves - Empathy Joy Hypothesis explanation → you will help ppl bc it makes you feel good → you will never not have anything to gain

Answer 113

- Procedure Story related to Katie’s misfortune and Katie needed help with some charitable work for her situation - Two Independent Variables - Empathy - High Empathy – told to take Katie’s perspective (empathic) while reading about her pov - Low Empathy – or told to take an objective perspective while reading about her pov - Feedback - No feedback – not meet Katie; not find out the results of your help - Feedback – not meet Katie; but receive follow-up info → if your help was beneficial or not - Dependent Variable - Whether they agreed to help Katie by volunteering to stuff envelopes next week or not. - Which condition demonstrates truly altruistic behaviour, according to Batson et al.? - FOUND THAT: compared to ppl who received feedback in both the high empathy condition and feedback conditions, the one who exhibited the most empathetic behaviour/helped her the most was those who were in the HIGH EMPATHY condition and received NO FEEDBACK - to Batson this exhibited true altruistic behaviour - Is there true altruism? - is its existence falsifiable?

Answer 114

- “I will gladly sacrifice my time to help others in need” - Socially valued behaviour - Empathy scales correlates very highly with social desirability scale - Empathy → “The fragile flower, easily crushed” - Empathy and giving to homeless - Attributions: - Dispositional, low effort = less help - measured how much empathy ppl felt toward the homeless ppl after they walked by them whether they helped or not → empathy did not predict if they gave to the homeless (everyone felt empathy with them) - If you were on the other side of the street, you would never give to the homeless → simply had to be across the street from them to not give in to empathy and give to them

Answer 115

- When we fail to help. New York City, 1964 – Kitty - Genovese was murdered by Winston Mosley over the course of half an hour. In a busy area. She was raped and stabbed repeatedly. After her assailant left, she staggered to the corner and screamed for help. Of the 38 people who heard from the nearby apartments, no one helped or called the police. - possible bystander effect? - possible diffusion of responsibility? - possible pluralistic ignorance?

Answer 116

- **Bystander effect** (Darley & Latané, 1968): A person who witnesses another in need is less likely to help when there are other bystanders present to witness the event; the effect increases as the number of bystanders gets larger. - More likely to occur when need for help is minor - Less likely to occur among friends or when the bystanders are ppl you know

Answer 117

- People were more likely and faster to report the potential emergency when alone compared to with others. - Had ppl come into the study and put into a room → in the room they were either alone or there were 3 ppl in the room - They poured smoke under the door into the room - Reported how long it took for people to report that there was smoke pouring into the room - FOUND that when alone, ppl were more likely to report the smoke way earlier - Found with more people → less likely to report it and it took longer to report it

Answer 118

- **Diffusion of responsibility**: A situation in which the presence of others prevents any one person from taking responsibility (e.g., for helping) - **Pluralistic ignorance**: A situation in which individuals rely on others to identify a norm but falsely interpret others’ beliefs and feelings, resulting in inaction - ppl who are in an uncertain situation rely on others and look to them to decide what the right behaviour/course of action is - eg. if you look at sb and they’re just sitting there, and they look at you and you’re just sitting there, no one thinks to do anything else.

Answer 119

- Re-examined evidence for Kitty Genovese NYT story - Probably many fewer than 38 eye-witnesses - Witnesses could not have seen the attack for more than moments - Witnesses intervened (called police, screamed and yelled at assailant) - “the three key features of the Kitty Genovese story that appear in social psychology textbooks (that there were 38 witnesses, that the witnesses watched from their windows for the duration of the attack, and that the witnesses did not intervene) are not supported by the available evidence”

Answer 120

- Strong effect for passive bystanders and non-instructed bystanders - more pluralistic ignorance and diffusion of responsibility when you don’t know each other - Nearly opposing effect for active bystanders (at least 1 helper) - i.e., increased the likelihood of helping - the more helpers there are, the more likely others are to help

Answer 121

1. Attention: Notice the event: failing to notice the even (eg. time pressure or distraction)-> no intervention/no help is given 2. Interpret the event as an emergency: Assuming there is no real danger or threat (eg. pluralistic ignorance) -> no intervention/help given 3. Take responsibility: Believing sb else will take action (eg. diffusion of responsibility) -> no intervention/help is given 4. Not knowing what to do (eg. feeling unqualified or unskilled) -> no intervention/help given 5. Give help: Danger to self; legal concerns; embarrassment (costs of helping too high)

Answer 122

Are We Selfish or Selfless People?” - First impulse defines us - whatever wells up inside us naturally, is our nature - Self-control can reveal our basic nature, our first instincts - Are we selfish? - Self-control is necessary to restrain our base impulses towards temptation - if we’re selfish then self control is essential to stop impulses and do the right thing - Are we prosocial? - Self-control is necessary to restrain blind altruism to enable personal achievement - standing up for yourself and doing what you want

Answer 123

- Gordon Gekko - Be warned that if you wish, as I do, to build a society in which individuals cooperate generously and unselfishly towards a common good, you can expect little help from biological nature. Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish. Let us understand what our own selfish genes are up to, because we may then at least have the chance to upset their designs, something that no other species has ever aspired to.” - "The Selfish Gene" by Prof. Richard Dawkins (1976) - → Greed is actually as good thing - Freud → core of human nature is base animal impulses → sex, aggression, getting what we want

Answer 124

- Right Lateral PFC associated with self-control - If you could turn off the rlPFC, then people should be less controlled, more selfish - Ultimatum game - Rejection of offer is self-control over selfish greed - rTMS - TMS → hurts → each condition is right TMS plus hurt, left TMS plus hurt, sham is not hurt bc TMS is off - Reasoned that in the ultimatum game, when you get an unfair offer, the greedy response is to just take the money - The controlled response is the social response → to reject the money, knowing its anything, but accepting the altruistic punishment of knowing its an unfair offer

Answer 125

- INCREASES SELFISHNESS IN ULTIMATUM GAME - Ppl knew it was unfair, they just started taking the money - Idea there is that our first impulse is greediness, but our controlled, social impulse is to be fair and reject unfair offer those with right TMS accepted the unfair offer more (45% acceptance rate) compared to left TMS (15%) and Sham condition (10%)

Answer 126

- We are social creatures - More social than any other animal - Sacrifice for others with no personal gain (reputation) nor gain for the group - Irrational according selfish theories

Answer 127

- Much like rTMS studies, sought to strip people of self-control - Time-pressure! - Decision time - Act fast! - Intuitive, trust your gut - designed to reduce deliberation and control - Measure cooperative behaviour - RESULTS: Across all manipulations, if you reduce the time and the ability for ppl to deliberate, they’re going to be more giving. - Placed under time pressure, ppl give more - Longer you delay time, less ppl will give

Answer 128

- Probably both - It’s an Interaction: - (P)ersonality x (E)nvironment (as always!) - Personality - Prosocial traits - Ppl higher in Agreeableness? Extraversion? - Selfish traits - Ppl higher in Power? Achievement motivation? - Environment - Social cues, social norms - Eg. dictator game: making offers in front of cup → 3 dots like image, or 3 dots flipped upside down - The 3 dots are enough to activate FFA - When the cup had dots similar to a face, people were more generous in dictator game → that’s all it took

Answer 129

- Some may need self-control to curb greed and be able to sacrifice and care for others - Some may need self-control to stop sacrificial altruism or submission and assert themselves and their personal goals - Some may need self-control for both of these outcomes

Answer 130

- Push and pull of motivation toward prosocial vs selfish behaviour - Self-control allows us to peek at our basic nature, our first impulse - But personality and environment shape this dynamic - Maybe the most important extrinsic variable… - Money!!! - Money or even the thought of money is going to change how prosocial sb is going to be

Answer 131

- Money associated with: - free of dependence (no help) - people feeling self-sufficient and behaving accordingly - work toward personal gain and being separate from others. - Independent variable - Scrambled Sentence Task; Monopoly - Money prime vs. No prime - Dependent variables related to helping - Study 1 - # of data sheets ppl volunteered to code - Study 2 - # of seconds an individual engaged in helping a peer - Study 3 - # of pencils gathered when an experimenter walked by and dropped them → the idea being the more helpful you are, the more you pick up - Study 4 - $ given in donations - FOUND: money prime muted what would be the prosocial response - gathered fewer pencils - helped for less time - gave less in donations - Money related to less prosocial, more selfish behaviours

Answer 132

- Similar to narcissism and feelings of power - Money makes me feel good, promotes autonomy and justifies sense of superiority - “I earned it” “You get what you put in” - RECALL: Wealth and happiness link - the more money you make, the more life satisfaction goes up - At the expense of compassion and empathy?

Answer 133

- Looked at the idea: does money make you mean? - Got ppl to play monopoly - Randomly assigned to 1 of 2 conditions - Rich player vs. poor player - One player gets clearly unfair rules → tipped in their favour. eg. penalties halved, starting amount higher, get to roll more - Monitored behaviour while engaging in this game - FOUND: - As the game went on, the rich player started getting louder, smacking their piece around the board, also got more showy physically (moving around more, ate more pretzels), started making comments towards the other player (more confident), got more insulting to the other player - Them being in an advantageous condition made them ruder to the other person - When asked the outcome, the rich player ascribed their win to personal skill, despite the obvious unfairness.

Answer 134

- High SES predicts reduced offer (less fair) in the dictator game - High SES tend to moralize self-interest and greed - It’s sth I should do - Gordon Gekko → greed is good philosophy - Nicer cars less likely to stop at crosswalk - Manipulated status decreases support for prosocial behaviour - eg. in a monopoly game - When ppl felt high status, they showed decreased support for prosocial behaviours

Answer 135

- Randomly assigned to read about a chaotic future or stable future - Stable future = no difference - Chaotic future → ppl in low SES became more communal - Chaotic future → ppl in high SES became more individualistic - When people primed with compassion: - High SES became more helpful in terms of time given in helping behaviour DV

Answer 136

- RECALL: Self-determination theory outlines basic psychological needs: - Basic psychological needs - Autonomy - Relatedness - Competence - Compassionate action (e.g., using money earned to help others) should serve these needs - I’m helping, helping others, and I seem to be good at this - Whereas attaining money as an end in of itself might not hit these psychological needs - Increased well-being… - benefit of compassionate action

Answer 137

- Looked at prosocial spending and wellbeing - In almost every country, positive relationship between prosocial spending and wellbeing Toddlers and Giving (Dunn) - looked at children interacting with an experimenter and giving to that experimenter - 4 stages: - child is given 8 treats → asked to give experimenter's treats through to the puppet → then asked to give their own treats to the experimenter puppet - First stage: (a) happy, meet puppet (experimenter) - (b) Receives treats, a little less happy - (c) Child gives the experimenter’s extra treat to puppet → increased happiness - (d) Child gives own treat to puppet → even more increase in happiness

Answer 138

- People suggest you can take these prosocial ideals and place them at the top → fulfill psychological needs - Still have autonomy, but is connecting you → can replace aggressive defenses we often have

Answer 139

- Wisdom: - Pursuit of prosocial, compassionate ideals - Dialecticism - Ok with conflict - Self-control (temperance) - Reasoning in the face of conflict - step out of your own selfish cravings and can arrive at wise decisions - Long-term focus - Perspective-taking - Core feature of empathy - ‘Escape the self’ - 1. Change the response to anxiety - Create a frustration→ compassion link - Prosocial and Compassionate ideals - 2. Defusing anxiety - Halts the frustration→ aggression/obsession link - Allows empathy and mutes narcissism and power

Answer 140

- Terror Management people: Create a frustration→ compassion link - Prosocial and Compassionate ideals - Priming - Religion Prime study earlier in lecture - cemetary - Cemetery study… - Gailliot et al., 2008 - Went to a campus where there was a high traffic area where there was a cemetery ppl had to walk through -> waited outside and gave them a survey → 2 conditions → helping is primed or not - and see how many papers they picked up or pencils when dropped - FOUND: most helpful were ppl who were primed with helping and walked through cemetery - ppl who were primed with helping but no cemetery were not that helpful - Death motivated ppl to protect their values → helping values → gravitate towards it to protect their values → engage more in that behaviour

Answer 141

- Democratic Congressman Charlie Wilson talking to a CIA agent → responsible for invasion to be repulsed → - Story of Little boy on 14th bday gets a horse → how wonderful it is to get a horse → years later boy falls off → horse bad idea? (we'll see)-> we’ll see → goes to war and loses his legs year later → people say how wonderful he survived → ppl replied “we’ll see!” - Telling a story about wisdom → taking a longer perspective → what seems good now might seem bad later - “We’ll see…” - I think this is pretty wise (and we all know how that situation turned out) but tough to say exactly why… - What makes it wise? - relates to idea of a longer-term perspective - Idea of temperance

Answer 142

- Merriam-Webster (simple def) - The practice of drinking little or no alcohol - Temperance Movement - Tangled up in conflict of moral authority - Prudence: Facet of temperance - Has become synonymous with reluctance - “Prude” - Prig, Puritan, Killjoy - Negative tone… - Not someone you want at a party, at least - Almost no empirical research on temperance or prudence

Answer 143

- Prudence associated with antiquity - Plato, Socrates, Aristotle - Each one said how important it is to the psychological being

Answer 144

- Temperance - Prudence - Fortitude - Justice

Answer 145

- Virtue is found between excess and deficit - appropriate action is contextually dependent and divined through intellect and wisdom - Depends on too much, too little - Finding the right behaviour given the situation you are in is the Golden Mean - Excess: foolhardiness, vanity, timidity, apathy, buffoonery, arrogance, bashfulness… - The Golden Mean: courage, rightful pride, gentleness, patience, wittiness, truth of oneself, modesty - Deficiency: cowardice, undue meekness, wrathfulness, aggression, boorishness, false-modesty

Answer 146

- Phronesis - often translated as prudence - **practical wisdom that allows one to judge whether actions fit this golden mean** - Beyond mere restraint - Could ‘restrain’ good impulses, too

Answer 147

The path to virtue. - St. Thomas Aquinas - Platonic Virtues - Included temperance and prudence - Prudence was the path through which all other virtue flowed - Directly reflects Aristotle’s view on Phronesis and the Golden Mean

Answer 148

- Adam and Eve getting kicked out of Eden, last chat with the Archangel Michael - “…I yield it just,” said Adam, “and submit. But is there yet no other way, besidesThese painful passages, how we may come To death, and mix with our connatural dust?” - “There is,” said Michael, “if thou well observe The rule of not too much, by temperance taught…” - Book XI, 526-531 - The only divine advice Michael had humans got after being kicked out of paradise → be more careful, think more wisely - Direct reference to the Golden Mean

Answer 149

All Sin Comes From Love - Excess or deficiency - Depends on how its represented or enacted - eg. jealousy, or avoidance

Answer 150

- Dama (Damah) - translated as Self-restraint - Primary facet of good character - Required for adhering to Dharma - duties, values, morals, and ideals that sustain social and universal order. - the web we are all emmeshed in

Answer 151

- First Noble Truth - Life is Dukkha - Uneasy, friction, anxiety, stress, pain, suffering - Du: Bad - Kha: Space - Dukkha: Bad axle hole (mechanical problem) → when your wooden cart, was bumpy bc you have a bad axel hole → frustrating - We find easy escape from Dukkha in impulsive desires and cravings - Noble Eightfold Path - Ways to build insight and eliminate these impulsive cravings in an impermanent world - Avoidance of excess and contact with the world as it is - i.e., temperance and prudence

Answer 152

- Virtue Ethics - Emphasizes tempered reasoning, thought, and good character - Contrasted with *consequentialism* (morality is contingent on the value of an action’s outcome) and *deontology* (morality is the action we ought to do) - something is good or bad in and of itself → murder is just wrong, it doesn’t matter when you commit it - Emphasizes being and developing good character - Draws heavily on Classical Antiquity - Temperance again classified as virtue

Answer 153

- Character Strengths and Virtues Handbook - Mirror twin of the DSM - when things go right → the good life, the well-being, how do you get there? - written by Martin E.P Seligman → learned helpless studies → who studied this via shocking dogs → now saying how to be a good person - Virtues that make a good person: Wisdom, courage, humanity, transcendence, justice, moderation (aka temperance)

Answer 154

- Temperance (Character Strengths and Virtues) - Humility and modesty: accurate assessment of personal attributes, escape myopic self-focus, open to other perspectives and ideas. - Prudence (phronesis): pragmatic wisdom, involves deliberation, foresight and planning, restraint of shallow impulses and persistence in long-term goals - drawn from Aristotle - Self-regulation: effortful inhibition of unwanted impulses and emotions - Forgiveness and mercy: Revenge is seductive, but forgiveness fosters trust and connection

Answer 155

- Staging a comeback! - Contrasted with myopic convictions, arrogance, impulsivity, and aggression - When and for whom might these negative behaviours be restrained and more appropriate actions be taken? - most useful for those who have high defensive impulses

Answer 156

- Anxious circumstances can cause the reverse of Temperance - Reduced humility, prudence, control, and forgiveness - instead, want to engage in revenge - Temperance ‘when it counts’ - when aggressive, extreme, impulsive reactions loom large - When we are trying to escape, to feel better - better path to release

Answer 157

- Self-control - DF: Detection of conflict and restraint of inappropriate impulse for more appropriate goal - The same ‘starting point’ as defensive impulses - Different outcome - Self-control sounds a lot like temperance in anxious circumstances - Trait self-control capable of restraining defensive impulses after goal conflict and anxiety? - it does seem to be the case

Answer 158

- People high in self-control appear to have found a way through ‘painful passages’ mentioned by Adam in Paradise Lost - High Trait Self-Control are… - Healthier - Less stressed - Better relationships - Better grades in school - Better workers - Etc

Answer 159

Had ppl read about Ralph, Dawn and Curt: - My husband, "Ralph," has one sister, "Dawn," and one brother, "Curt." Their parents died six years ago, within months of each other. Ever since, Dawn has once a year mentioned buying a headstone for their parents. I'm all for it, but Dawn is determined to spend a bundle on it, and she expects her brothers to help foot the bill. She recently told me she had put $2,000 aside to pay for it. Recently Dawn called to announce that she had gone ahead, selected the design, written the epitaph and ordered the headstone. Now she expects Curt and Ralph to pay "their share" back to her. She said she went ahead and ordered it on her own because she has been feeling guilty all these years that her parents didn't have one. I feel that since Dawn did this all by herself, her brothers shouldn't have to pay her anything. I know that if Curt and Ralph don't pay her back, they'll never hear the end of it, and neither will I. What should I do about this? - Intelligence goes down as you age, but wisdom goes up - Looked like wise range of ages in their sample and asked them questions about social dilemmas and quoted these open-ended responses in terms of different characteristics of wisdom → Grossmann et al, 2010.

Answer 160

- coded participants’ open-ended responses to social conflicts - derived wisdom characteristics from most frequently mentioned characteristics in literature * i) perspective shifting from one's own point of view to the point of view of people involved in the conflict * (ii) recognition of the likelihood of change * (iii) prediction flexibility, as indicated by multiple possible predictions of how the conflict might unfold * (iv) recognition of uncertainty and the limits of knowledge * (v) search for conflict resolution * (vi) search for a compromise - FOUND: - Across these different characteristics of wise reasoning, age was indeed associated with more wise responses - As age goes up, wise reasoning goes up - Wisdom score: Top 20% age: 64.9 Wisdom score: Bottom 80% age: 45.5

Answer 161

- Doing, not knowing (being smart can be a trap) - Socrates “I know that I know nothing” - the limits of knowledge - Martin Shkreli? Fairly logical rationalization of +5000% price hike on life-saving drug - the way markets work, I’m not the one doing it, it’s the way markets work - Mark Zuckerberg and “Let’s create a global community where everybody is connected (through my product)! Everyone will get along great!” - Clearly didn’t think that one through… - Even when anxious or eagerly excited. - These promote escape via the tunnel vision of approach, particularly personally powerful ideals - How to quell anxiety yet avoid the perils of power (e.g., low empathy, high aggression, narcissism etc)?

Answer 162

Wisdom and Hypo-egoic states. - Hypo-egoic: relinquish deliberate, conscious control over personal behaviour so that you will respond more naturally, spontaneously, or automatically - Psychological distance - Awe - Gratitude - Mindfulness (present-focus) - Common Humanity - Compassionate Action - Inspirational people, symbols, reminders - Prayer and religious/ spiritual rituals for some people…

Answer 163

- Hypo-egoic: relinquish deliberate, conscious control over personal behaviour so that you will respond more naturally, spontaneously, or automatically - Psychological distance - Awe - Gratitude - Mindfulness (present-focus) - Common Humanity - Compassionate Action - Inspirational people, symbols, reminders - Prayer and religious/ spiritual rituals for some people…

Answer 164

- Think about the economic recession (Study 1) or the government run by political opponents and then reason about personal impact from a(n)… - immersed perspective: - “imagine the events unfolding before your own eyes as if you were right there” - distanced perspective - “imagine the events unfolding as if you were a distant observer” - FOUND: - People were more wise/reasoning more wisely about the difficult scenario, showed more intellectual reasoning, when they felt MORE PSYCHOLOGICAL DISTANCE from the problem rather than being in it.

Answer 165

- possibly from Greek word achos - pain, ache - Threatening but uplifting, affirming kind of experience - Typically when things are way bigger than you - Yet you can feel kind of connected to it Awe of Religion - Eg. cathedrals Piff and Awe (Piff et al., 20150 - being able to escape the self may make ppl more prosocial - Manipulated sense of awe or amusement/neutral state - Found - Awe made ppl feel small but through that feeling they became more generous

Answer 166

- being able to escape the self may make ppl more prosocial - Manipulated sense of awe or amusement/neutral state - Found - Awe made ppl feel small but through that feeling they became more generous

Answer 167

Meditation and the UHOH! Signal (Teper and Inzlict, 2013) - Looked at error response in people in control condition or intensive mediation condition - Meditation condition showed increased sensitivity to errors - These errors were then more correlated with improved behaviour in the task → this is feedback, they were more accepting of that feedback Meditation Training and Prosocial Behaviour (Condon et al., 2013) - 8 week training group vs. Control group - 3 chairs in waiting room, one open spot - Participant takes that chair - Someone in crutches, in discomfort shows up - Give seat or not? - Found: Meditator group 5x more likely to give up seat

Answer 168

- Hindu-Buddhist roots - Huge variety today - Two broad components * Present awareness (here and now) * Emotional acceptance (knowing you're angry but thats okay)

Answer 169

Pleasure - Pleasure principle: * We want to avoid pain and experience pleasure * So maximize happiness! - Freud, Skinner, James, Ancient Greeks like Epicurus…, - Meaning and Growth * Eating a cake vs. caring for a sick child * Not very happy, but very meaningful * Pixar has this experience nailed down to a science… * Relationships and meaning…

Answer 170

- Pleasure doesn’t last * We lose interest, habituate * Depends on external factors (attainment or not) * Personal integrity might suffer if we focus on pleasure for too long * The aspects of our life might not cohere as well around a pleasure principle * Good for me, but bad for you - And probably bad for me in the long run… - The world is not really a fun place * Suffering abounds (Usman)→ so living according to meaning might be better - Eudaimonia! (Greek for good spirit) * There’s more to life than the shadow’s we see cast on the wall’s of the cave (Plato) * Virtue and well-being * Human flourishing * Journey (not a destination) * Good for me and good for you * Relational values

Answer 171

- Why there is the U shape for becoming a parent → become a parent, satisfaction goes does form about 18 years, then it goes back up - Ppl do it because it’s meaning-provoking

Last 3 weeks of Class (50% of Final) Flashcards

(195 cards)