Lecture 2: Constructing Social Experience

Question 1

making meaning of our relationship interactions

Answer 1

• Many social experiences are ambiguous and subject to multiple interpretations
• Some studies estimate that as much as 70% of our thoughts and conversations are spent trying to make sense of others
• ¼ UK adults admit to spending “hours” analyzing the wording/tone of a text
• Couple conflict is often rooted in disagreements about the meaning of an event rather than disagreement about its occurrence

Question 2

attribution

Answer 2

explanations we make to understand the causes of events

Question 3

two categories for attributions

Answer 3

locus & stability

Question 4

locus distribution

Answer 4

is the cause of the behaviour internal or external to the person?

Question 5

stability dimension

Answer 5

is the cause of the behaviour temporary?

Question 6

are attributions independent?

Answer 6

Often go hand-in-hand (ex. Internal causes are more likely to be stable), but not necessarily

Question 7

relationship-enhancing attributions

Answer 7

• Seeing positive behaviours as internal and stable
• Seeing negative behaviours as external and temporary

Question 8

distress-maintaining attributions

Answer 8

• Seeing positive behaviours as external and temporary
• Seeing negative behaviours as internal and stable

Question 9

attributions and relationship satisfaction

Answer 9

• Satisfied couples tend to make relationship-enhancing attributions
• Distressed couples tend to make distress-maintaining attributions
• The pattern of attributions partners make also predicts which couples are likely to stay happy and together over time

Question 10

what influences the attributions we make?

Answer 10

• Attributions shape our interpretation of events (construal), which in turn affects our behaviour
• In any given interaction, we bring our pre-existing knowledge of what our partner is like, what people are like in general, and what relationships are like

Question 11

schemas

Answer 11

• Mental frameworks or cognitive structures that help us make sense of our complex world
• Information processing by providing an organizational structure where we can slot new information
• Guide perception
• Allow us to make predictions (i.e. includes expectancies)

Question 12

expectancy confirmation

Answer 12

Schemes can be updated with new information, but also tend to be self-perpetuating

Question 13

2 pathways for expectancy confirmation

Answer 13

• Perceptual confirmation: we see what we expect to see
• Behavioural confirmation: we behave in a way that makes our expectancies come true

Question 14

rejection sensitivity

Answer 14

disposition (individual tendency) to be anxious expect, readily perceive, and overreact to rejection

Question 15

high vs. low RS

Answer 15

• High RS: people who anxiously expect rejection
• Low RS: people who calmly expect acceptance

Question 16

how do we form rejection expectancies?

Answer 16

• Repeated experiences of rejection lead to the formation of rejection expectancies
• These expectancies are activated in situations where rejection is possible
• Once activated, they increase our readiness to perceive rejection

Question 17

rs measure

Answer 17

• Lists a variety of interpersonal situations where rejection is possible and assesses responses along two dimensions
• The score for each situation is calculated by weighing the expected likelihood by the degree of concern

Question 18

two dimensions of RS

Answer 18

• Degree of anxiety & concern about the outcome
• Expectations of acceptance & rejection

Question 19

perceptual confirmation

Answer 19

For individuals high in RS, rejection-related cues are more likely to capture attention (attention bias)

Question 20

emotional stroop task

Answer 20

• Participants are asked to process one aspect of a stimulus (i.e. naming the ink colour a word is printed in) while ignoring an irrelevant aspect of the stimulus (i.e. the content of the word)
• Content of the word in the RS Stroop task: rejection-related, non-rejection negative, and neutral
• If participants take longer to name the ink colour that a rejection-related word relative to a neutral word, this suggests an attentional bias towards rejection-relate words

Question 21

results of the RS stroop task

Answer 21

• RS is associated with slower response time on rejection-related word trials (controlling for response on neutral trials)
  I.e. greater interference on rejection-related word trials = greater attentional bias towards rejection-related cues
• There is no such association between RS and response time in negative trials
• Consequently, this does not suggest a general tendency to pay more attention to negative stimuli

Question 22

more evidence of perceptual confirmation in RS

Answer 22

• RS individuals are more likely to construe ambiguous social behaviour of a stranger as rejecting
• Ex. an experiment involved two “get to know you interactions” with another participant. After the first interaction, they were told 1 of 2 things: “Amy didn’t want to continue with the second part of the experiment” (ambiguous) and “There is not enough time for the second interaction” (neutral). RS was linked to greater feelings of rejection in the ambiguous condition
• RS individuals are also more likely to construe insensitive behaviour of new partners as intentionally rejecting (i.e. attribute behaviour to hurtful intent)

Question 23

behavioural confirmation

Answer 23

People who expect rejection tend to behave in ways that elicit rejection from close others (self-fulfilling prophecy)

Question 24

behavioural confirmation study

Answer 24

• college-age (mostly) heterosexual couples in exclusive relationships
• Asked to select up to 5 topics of ongoing conflict from a list and indicate the most salient issue
• Assigned to discuss mutually agreed upon issue for 20 mins
• Completed measure of affect pre- and post-interaction (RS was assessed on a separate day)
• Behaviour during the interaction was coded by observers
• High RS women displayed more negative behaviours during the interaction than low RS women
• Partners of HRS women were angrier about the relationship following the discussion relative to the partners of LRS women
• Women’s negative behaviour accounted for 54% of the effect of women’s RS on their partner’s change in anger

Question 25

gender effects on RS

Answer 25

- No effect was observed for male partners in this study - But, in other research: Lower levels of relationship satisfaction in female partners of men high in RS explained by these men’s jealous and controlling behaviour

Question 26

why do HRS people display hostility when primed by rejection cues?

Answer 26

- HRS & LRS women are similar in hostility when not primed by rejection cues - Possible explanation: partner selection - But, researchers controlled for many partner & relationship variables - This is possibly a behavioural manifestation of feelings of hurt, anger, frustration, and hopelessness

Question 27

relational impact of low self-esteem

Answer 27

- Individuals with low self-esteem also have chronic concerns about acceptance - They see themselves negatively and believe that others do too - This may defend against relationship anxieties triggered by self-doubt by devaluing the relationship

Question 28

naive realism

Answer 28

the idea that one’s perception of the world is an accurate representation of reality

Question 29

relational impact of self-doubt study

Answer 29

- participants completed a purported measure of intelligence and were given feedback in 3 conditions: failure feedback, success feedback, and no feedback. They found that for low SE individuals, self-doubts about intellectual abilities triggered: - Anxieties about partner rejection, lower confidence in partner’s regard - Lower valuation of the relationship, derogation of the partner - Lowered confidence in the partner’s regard mediated the negative impact of failure manipulation on relationship devaluation - The opposite pattern was found for high SE individuals

Question 30

fundamental attribution error

Answer 30

the tendency to underestimate situational influences & overestimate dispositional influences on the behaviour of others

Question 31

motivated cognition

Answer 31

the ways in which our motives and desires shape how we select, interpret, and organize information, to achieve some desired outcome

Question 32

motive

Answer 32

drive to reach a specific goal

Question 33

bias

Answer 33

tendency to process information in a systematic way to reach a certain point of view

Question 34

motivation cognition and biases

Answer 34

- Our motive to believe certain things about our partner and the relationship can lead to biases in how we perceive our partner and the relationship - This helps explain why outsiders sometimes evaluate a relationship very differently from its participants - Recall that we strive to maintain consistency between our thoughts, beliefs, and actions (ex. Cognitive dissonance theory) - Few relationships are perfect and some degree of doubt and conflict is inevitable

Question 35

enhancement motive

Answer 35

- In committed relationships, we are motivated to see our partner and the relationship in a positive light - Processing information in a way that casts our partner/relationship in a positive light - Manifests in positive illusions about the partner and relationship

Question 36

positive illusions about partners

Answer 36

- Satisfied partners tend to idealize their partners - They see partners more positively than the partners see themselves - This can’t be explained by partners being modest - Happy spouses rate partners more positively than their friends do - People in happy relationships elevate relational virtues and minimize faults - They minimize their partner’s faults (ex. “Yes, but…”) - People in happy relationships believe their own relationship is better than the relationships of other people - People in happy relationships rate the likelihood of their own marriage failing below base rates - They are less realistic about relationship prospects than outside observers - Researchers asked relationship partners as well as their loved ones to predict whether the couple will still be together in 1 year - Partners were more optimistic and less accurate than friends and family despite having access to much more insider information

Question 37

positive illusions are related to:

Answer 37

- Greater relationship satisfaction and stability - Fewer and less destructive relationship conflicts - Partner’s increasingly positive perception of the self

Question 38

the hierarchy of perceptions of partners

Answer 38

- Perceptions of partners vary in levels of abstraction, ranging from very specific to global - The top of the hierarchy has fewer objective standards and more latitude to place partners in a positive light - It is possible to view one’s partner positively at the global level, while still acknowledging specific positive & negative traits - In newlyweds, there are high levels of enhancement at the global level - There is fairly high accuracy at the trait level, but significant variability - In heterosexual marriages, wives’ more accurate specific perceptions are associated with greater support behaviour, feelings of control within marriage, and decreased likelihood of divorce - Love may be stronger when grounded in specific accuracy - Positive illusions blend reality and illusions based on projected ideals and hopes

Question 39

justification motive

Answer 39

- We want to see ourselves positively - In clearly troubled relationships, we can still uplift ourselves by blaming the partner for the faltering relationship

Question 40

self-serving bias

Answer 40

the tendency to make internal attributions for our positive behaviour, and external attributions for our negative behaviour

Question 41

self-serving bias in relationships

Answer 41

- This can even occur in happy relationships - We don’t want to believe responsibility by blaming our partner or the situation that we could cause our partner pain or distress - We deflect responsibility by blaming the situation or our partner

Question 42

the dyadic nature of relationship interaction

Answer 42

Generally, two people are involved in relationship interactions & both are susceptible to self-serving biases

Question 43

actor-observer difference

Answer 43

- The degree to which you are oriented towards the person vs. the situation depends on whether you’re engaged in the action yourself or just observing - Actors are more likely to make situational attributions, while observers are more likely to make dispositional attributions - Again, we don’t realize we’re part of the situation for our partner

Question 44

memory bias

Answer 44

- Memory is a constructive process - Pieces of remembered information + current knowledge = narrative that makes sense to us now - We can leave out or amplify information to support our current view of the partner and relationship

Question 45

memory bias in couples study

Answer 45

- Couples were asked to rate their partner’s personality and relationship - They did it again two months later and compared the ratings - Memories of past feelings guide current feelings about their relationship - If satisfaction improved, they remembered feeling more positively than they actually did - If satisfaction declined, they remembered feeling more negatively than they actually did