Social Psych 3 Things that make us feel good: ourselves and others

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Social Psych 3Things that make us feel good
ourselves and others

• Lecture 18
• 4/14/04

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So much to tell

• Ironic monitor
• Attraction
• Stereotypes

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Re-visiting Persuasion

• Testing the sound quality of stereo headphones
• Vs.
• Listen to a speech advocating tuition increase
• OR
• Listen to a speech advocating tuition decrease

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Influenced by Ourselves
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Influenced by Ourselves
Implications ???
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Movie Clip Sex The City

• Passion w/out intimacy
• Unrealistic optimism

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Compared to other UT students
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Self-Deception?

• 98 high school seniors perceive selves above
  average in leadership
• 0 rated selves below average on ability to get
  along with others
• 25 rated selves as top 1
• 90 of adult sample rated selves as above average
  drivers
• 94 of college profs rated selves as better than
  average at their job

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• Distortion
• OR
• Biased sampling

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Self-Service

• Overly positive self-evaluations
• Exaggerated perceptions of personal control
• Unrealistic optimism
• Downward social comparisons

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Self-Service I

• Overly positive self-evaluations
• Above-Average 60 believe happier than most
• Overestimate contributions to teamwork
• K.A.T.E. N.

I know youd like to think your dont
stink Roses really smell like poo-poo
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Which is most important?Rank these traits

• Intelligence
• Sense of humor
• Kindness
• Creativity
• Sensitivity
• Industriousness

Is it important for people to be kind, funny,
etc. ?
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How well do they represent you? Rank again

• Intelligence
• Sense of humor
• Kindness
• Creativity
• Sensitivity
• Industriousness

Is creativity your strong suit? Then 1
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How well do they represent you?

• IMPORTANCE
• Intelligence
• Industriousness
• Sense of humor
• Creativity
• Sensitivity
• Kindness

• REPRESENTATIVENESS
• Intelligence
• Industriousness
• Sense of humor
• Creativity
• Sensitivity
• Kindness

Manipulating relative importance boosting our
self-esteem I have whats most important
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Self-serving Biases in Sports Pages Lau
Russell (1980)

• Personal credit for successes
• External forces for failures
• Players, coaches, commentators Our teams
  ability vs. their good luck
• Also on SATs

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Self-Service II

• Exaggerated perceptions of personal control
• Perceive control in chance situations
• Tossing dice, lucky t-shirts
• Powerball, 1995 pick your own, let computer
  pick?
• I figure I have a better chance of winning

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Self-Service III

• Unrealistic optimism
• Future oriented hopeful confident of
  improvement
• More likely than peers to graduate higher in
  class, better job, happier marriage, like their
  1st job, have gifted child
• Fired, divorce, car accident, heart attack,
  depression (Weinstein, 1980)

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Self Service IV

• Social comparisons
• Festinger, 1954 fundamental drive to evaluate
  opinions and abilities AND, do so by comparing
  ourselves to others
• WHEN?
• Ambiguity
• WHY?
• Accuracy and Enhancement

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Comparing to Feel Good

• Downward social Comparisons
• w/others who are less successful, happy, or
  fortunate
• Uplifts our mood and improves outlook for future
• Life could be worse
• Older woman w/ breast cancer
• The people I really feel bad for are these
  young gals. To lose a breast when youre so young
  must be awful
• Young girl
• If I hadnt been married, this thing would have
  been really gotten to me

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Do we turn to others to determine something as
personal and subjective as our own emotions?

• Ps given injection
• Epinephrine-informed
• Epinephrine-uninformed
• Placebo
• Waited with confederate who took same injection
• angry or happy
• Are they influenced by social cues?

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Paradoxical Enhancement

• Self-Handicapping
• PPL worry they wont live up to expectations
  deliberately set up for failure to lower
  expectations
• Drinking, drugs, not practicing
• Stress, physical symptoms
• Sandbagging for all to hear
• Saving face AND extra credit

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Berglas Jones (1978)

• Experiment on effects of drugs on intellectual
  performance
• All Ps told did well BUT 1 group had insolvable
  problems
• Given choice of Actavil (improvement drug) or
  Pandocrin (impairment drug) before next test
• Ps from insolvable group more likely to choose
  Pandocrin.
• convenient excuse for failure on the second test

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DISCUSSION

• Are positive illusions a sign of well-being or
  symptoms of a larger problem?

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Highly adaptive?

• Happier
• More caring
• More productive
• PPL who are depressed or have low SE have more
  realistic views of themselves than those who are
  better adjusted

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PRO vs. CON

• Depressed PPL
• Self appraisals match those of neutral observers
• Make fewer self-serving attributions
• Less likely to exaggerate control over
  uncontrollable events
• More balanced predictions about their future

• Positive illusions lead to chronic self-defeating
  behavior
• Escaping from self-awareness
• Self-handicapping to underachievement
• Deny health related problems until too late
• Rely on illusion of control for protection

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Determinants of Attraction and Friendships
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Determinants of Attraction

• Here and Now
• Situation (propinquity, repeated exposure)
• Individual attributes (attractiveness,
  similarity)
• Behavior (conveying liking, clumsiness)

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Predicting the Success of Dating Shows

• Getting acquainted in real-life settings
  (Sprecher Duck, 1994)
• Random pairing of Ms Fs on get-acquainted
  date
• Questionnaires
• Physical attractiveness
• Similarity
• Quality of conversation
• Friendship vs. (romantic) dating attraction
• M- similarity then attractiveness
• F- Quality of communication then similarity

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How Does It Feel to See a Perfect 10?
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What is Good is Beautiful?

• Attractive people are judged to be smart, happy,
  well-adjusted, socially skilled, confident, and
  assertive -- AND vain.
• Stereotype?
• Good-looking people do have more friends, better
  social skills, and a more active sex life.
• But beauty is not related to objective measures
  of intelligence, personality, adjustment, or
  self-esteem

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Winning friends by being critical, and clumsy

• You look nice from doting husband vs. bystander
  at a party same compliment becomes new and
  exciting
• Very attractive superstar does something
  embarrassing
• Their pratfall boosts rating even higher

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Gain/Loss

• P talks with partner
• P eavesdrops on conversation btw. partner
  experimenter (evaluating P)
• 7 times hears appraisal by confederate
• All positive
• 3 neg, 1 neutral, 3 pos
• 3 pos, 1 neutral, 3 neg
• All negative
• How do you (P) really like this person?

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Winning friends by being critical

• 6.42
• - - 0 7.67
• 0 - - - .87
• - - - - - - - 2.52
• Working to gain approval?
• Deficit Idea?
• Discernment/ credibility?

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Winning friends by being clumsy College Bowl
Quiz team try-outs

• Average person gets 30 right
• Interview shows avg. credentials (ran for office,
  proofreader of yearbook, tried out for team)

• Superstar gets 92 right on difficult test
• Interview shows high credentials (yearbook
  editor, president, captain)

• Interview ends (no pratfall)
• OR
• Loud crash with coffee spill (pratfall)

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Clumsiness Humanizes

• No Pratfall Pratfall
• Superstar 20.8 30.2
• Average 17.8 -2.5

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(No Transcript)
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What is Love?

• Caring
• Happiness
• Friendship
• Warmth
• Trust
• Commitment 
• Caring
• Euphoria
• Sexual passion
• Heartrate increases

• Passion
• Intimacy
• Commitment

FA (68)
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Sternbergs Triangular Theory

• Passion
• Physiological arousal, longing to be with someone
• Euphoria, butterflies in stomach
• Intimacy
• Close bond, sharing, support, exclusivity
• Feeling free to talk about anything
• Commitment
• Willingness to define as love, long-term decision
• Devotion, putting other first

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Intimacy Liking
Companionate Love
Romantic Love
Consummate Love
Commitment Empty Love
Passion Infatuated Love
Fatuous Love
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Hatfield Rapson, 1987
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Goals of Romantic Relationships

• Obtaining Sexual Satisfaction?
• "Did you think about sex even for a moment during
  the last 5 min?"
• 26-55 1 in 4 men, 1 in 7 women  
• Ive seen you around, I find you very
  attractive, would you go to bed with me
• Man 100 women no
• Women 76 men yes, rest apologetic

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Ive been noticing you around campus. I find you
to be very attractive (Clark Hatfield, 1989)
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Styles of Loving

• Eros
• Erotic, passionate, intimate
• Ludus
• Playful, multiple short-term, no jealousy,
  shallow
• Storge
• Slowly developing emotionally sexually, LT
  expectations
• Mania
• Obsessive, jealous, intense, insecure
• Pragma
• Based on vital stats (ludus Storge)
• Agape
• Altruistic love duty, gentle caring, guided by
  ideals