1.

Developmental Psychology
What is the best method of studying?

Study and test (Roediger and Karpick)

The testing effect
o Testing yourself on materials is a better method of long-term
retention
Describe and explain changes that occur across the lifespan
o Why is there variability in motor milestones?
o What reflexes are present at birth?
o What, when, how,
Developmental controversies:
o Nature vs. Nurture
o Universal vs. culturally bound
o Continuous vs. discontinuous
Nature vs Nurture
o Development is driven by genetic processes vs.
o Development is influenced by an individual environment and
experiences
Critical periods: period during development where
certain experiences are crucial for a particular trait to
develop
Sensitive periods: period whereby experience is optimal
for development of a trait to occur, but not critical
Rat experiment:
o Suspending rats on tails and not allowing back feet to touch
the ground
o 2 tests:
Swimming
Walking
o Swimming gets worse during deprivation periods but is only
temporary measure the duration of each stroke
o Walking is permanently affected measure rates ankle angle
when walking
Rats tiptoed and did not get any better
Critical period (20-30 days)

Universally or culturally influenced

Do cultural differences in the environment impact on development?

o Some developmental processes are seen in children of all
cultures
o Although, other processes are culturally bound
Studying newborns learning to walk can be quantitative or
qualitative depending on what you study

Continuity or Discontinuity
o Experiment

2. Genetic foundations of
development
Objective:
o Recap basic of genetic transmission
o Developmental consequences caused by genetic mutations
o Introduction of notion that genes interact

Epigenetics inheriting a trait but not displaying it

We are 98% similar to chimpanzees but act differently
o Environment allows for cell specialisation
Zygotesingle cell that forms when sperm enters egg

Disorders caused by dominant

genes

Disorders caused by
recessive genes

Huntingtons disease rare

neurodegenerative disease, onset
around 40

Phenylketonuria (PKU)
inability to metabolise
phenylalanine, cognitive deficits,
seizures, shortened lifespan

Affects 1 in 10,000 people

Neurodegenerative: brain cells
malfunction and die
problems with movement,
thinking, mood
Basal ganglia are most
affected controls movement,
organise thought, and regulate
emotions
o Clumsy, restless, muscle
spasms, difficult to
walk/talk
o Display chorea
(twitching)
o Communication/understa
nding is difficult
o Depression, apathy,
changes in sexual
behaviour, aggressive
o Long (>36) mutant
Huntington gene
proteins stick to each
other due to long tail

Builds up in brain and

causes mental retardation
Can be controlled by diet
It is the sweetener found in
diet cokes

Genetic abnormalities that affect developmental

processes
Downs
Syndrome

Extra copy Chromosome 21

1 in 1000 births
Life expectancy: 60yrs
Distinctive facial features

Fragile X

Rett
syndrome

Flat face
Low tone floppy babies
Growth motor delays are common
LT health issues leukaemia and Alzheimers

Lengthening of FMR1 gene on the X chromosome

1 in 3600 boys
1 in 4000-6000 girls
Life expectancy normal
Long narrow forehead, big forehead, large
ears
Crawl and walk late
Speech milestones are late
Anxiety arm flapping, rocking back and
forth
Mutation of MECP2 gene on X chromosome
1 in 10000 girls
Life expectancy: mid 40s
Development slows
Lose ability to use hands, less eye contact,
feeding problems
Lose all motor control

Sex determination
Turtles

Humans

Temperature dependent
sexual differentiation
29.2C normal threshold
50/50
26C all males
31C all females
Chromosomes
22 pairs of autosomes
1 pair sex chromosomes X
& Y chromosome
Female parents only have X
Male parent sperm has X & Y
XX = female offspring
XY = male offspring

For the image above:

Despite XX or XY, the Y chromosome does not kick in early

First 5-6 weeks: grow only under the influence of X chromosome
After, Y chromosome is activated and the SRY gene inhibits
certain features of X chromosome and impose the physiologically
traits of male

Disruptions to sex determination

Androgen Insensitivity
Syndrome (AIS)

Congenital Adrenal
Hyperplasia (CAH)

The body is genetically XY

(male)
But body does not detect
and respond to male
hormones
Tissues are insensitive to
testosterone
Developed female genital and
look female but are male on the
inside (?)
When puberty hits and they
don't develop breasts, etc.
testing diagnosis

Genetically XX (female)
Exposed to high levels of
male hormones prenatally

(before birth; during

pregnancy)
Maybe mum took
hormones
Genitals look
somewhat a mix
between a penor and a
v (depends on level of
testosterone they were
exposed to)

Most traits are polygenic

Gene expression is dependent on the environment
Epigenetics: the study of changes in organisms caused by modification of
gene expression rather than alteration of the genetic code itself.
o over/ or on top of genetics
o Heritable changes in how genes are expressed
Epigenetic programming by maternal behaviour
Experiences with good rat mums can impact offspring and their
offspring
o Rat babies with good mums tend to be good mums
themselves
NOT a learning thing
o The experience they had as infants changed their expressions
of genes
Methyl groups stick to genes silences it
o Extra serotonin can knock off the methyl group attached to
maternal behaviour so that it can be expressed
o Methylation can be passed!
No actual changes in DNA
But rather, changes in patterns of how genes are
expressed
Which can be inherited from parents

3. Prenatal development and premature birth

Objective

Describe stages of prenatal development

Explain the limit of viability for preterm birth
Discuss developmental consequences of pre-term birth and
interventions that influence developmental outcome

Gestation

Average gestation = 40 weeks

Born before 37 weeks preterm
Prematurity is becoming more and more common
Germinal embryonic foetal
o 1st trimester: 1-12 weeks
o 2nd and 3rd trimester are in foetal period

Germinal Period (First 14

days)

Zygote travels to uterus

Divides and forms blastocyst
16 64 cells

Embryonic period (3rd to

8th week)

Blastocyst implants in the uterine

wall
Organogenesis organs are
formed here
Layers of cells differentiate to
become:
Ectotherm (outer) nervous
system, skin, hair
Mesoderm (mid) muscles,
bones, and circulatory system
Endoderm (inner) digestive
systems, urinary tract, and other
vital organs

4 weeks

Neural tube flattens out curls over

each other
Brain is already forming at the top
anencephaly
Spine is forming at the bottom if
does not close out, spina-bifida
Heart starts to beat

Facial features are fusing

6 weeks

8 weeks

Foetal Period (last 7 months)

Growth and refinement of organ

systems
Foetus more responsive
Behaviour becomes increasingly
regular and integrated become
viable between 22-28 weeks

6 months
Capable of responding to light
Able to hear sound
Uterus sound level is 75db
Mothers voice and
heartbeat are best heard
7 months
3rd trimester
Foetus begins putting on weight
in the form of fat just beneath the
skin

Preterm infants

Born at <36 weeks (7% of all Aus. births)

Low birth weight (<2500g)
Certain groups are at higher risk:
o Indigenous mothers
o Young mothers (<20)
o Older mothers (>40)
o Multiple births (twins, triplets, etc.)
o First time mothers
Limit of viability: age which infants have a 50% chance surviving
their first year
o 24 weeks

Predict outcome

Whether or not to put the preterm into NICU is dependent on

gestational age and outcomes
Consider:
o Birth weight
Heavier babies do better
o Gender
Girls do better than girls
Estrogen are better in lung development
o Multiple or singleton
Twins do worse
o Steroids
Given steroids during labour for lung development is
better

Lung development is the most crucial factor they

must produce a surfactant or would otherwise collapse.
The baby naturally forms it at 30weeks but pre-terms
require technology

Germinal embryonic foetal

Outcome of preterm birth is multifactorial not determined only by
gestational age

4. Research Methods in
Developmental Psychology

Observational methods
o Hypothesis
o Observational test
Experimental methods
o Intervention group
o Control group
There are specialised experimental methods for studying
developmental change
o an age-related change in behaviour. Will be observed in
most normally developing humans of the same age

Cross-sectional designs

Study groups of different

ages and compare changes
in group performances with
age

Advantages

Convenienteasily carried
out and is a quick method to
collect data
No concern for attrition
No concern for testwiseness (rank order
effects) or reactivity

Disadvantages

Observations are influenced

by current events e.g. cross
sectional designs during war
periods vs. cross sectional
designs now
Cannot observe age-related
developments, but rather
compares the differences
between age groups only

Longitudinal studies

Study individuals of the

same age and repeatedly
measure the same
individuals at different times/
ages

Advantages

Tracks performance of
individual subject over time
Can compare different
aspects of development

Disadvantages

Costly and high time

commitment
Risk of attrition
Risk of rank-order effects
(e.g. the participants are
accustomed to the
experiments questions
perform better over time)

Longitudinal sequential designs

o Cross-sectional design used initially with several groups of
different ages
o Groups are repeatedly tested longitudinally
o Overcomes most limitations of the two traditional approaches

5. Prenatal

Lecture question: For babies born pre-term, how do experiences in

the NICU and womb differ?

o Bright lights in NICU
o Liquid environment of womb
o Respiration, nutrients, hormones, and antibodies via placenta
vs. feeding tube
o Sound of mothers voice, circulation, and heartbeat
o Muffled noises
o Mothers fluid to regulate temperature
o Position and support in womb vs. bed

Pre-term interventions
Neonatal Intensive Care Unit
(NICU)
Adopted by 86% of US hospitals

Attempt to emulate the

womb environment

Adaptation to NICU
Kangaroo care (98% US hospitals
NICU)

Tactile-kinaesthetic stimulation
(38%)

More time on mothers or

carers chestenhanced
regulatory processes
Skin-to-skin contact
Accelerates development of
regulatory processers
sleep development
better feeding/growth
earlier discharge
Massage
Stimulates growth
Decreases stress
Earlier discharge
Both babies and the mother
benefit
Babies and depressed
mothers undergo stimulation

which results in growth as

stress hormones are reduced
thus able to better
metabolise milk

Sequential prenatal development

o Germinal embryonic foetal
Preterm births are abnormality in foetal environment
o Multi-factorial outcomes not solely determined by
gestational age
Survival and long-term effects
o Research has changes NICU practices and improved outcomes
for infants

Perceptual Development
How do infants experience the world?

Objective:
o Describe infant perceptual capabilities and how they change
with age
o Use examples of perceptual narrowing to explain how
experiences shape the way infants view the world

Perceptual capability
Audition

Development

Olfaction

Taste

Foetuses can hear in the

womb and learn about what
they hear
Cat in the Hat study
Baby able to learn mothers
voice mother reads story
vs. another woman
There is a preference for
mothers voice
One of the first senses to
develop
Newborns attracted to smell
of breastmilk at birth
At 6wks; babies can
differentiate between
mothers milk and strangers
milk
However, formula-fed babies
cannot differentiate
Tongue taste receptors

Touch

Sight

develop prenatally
Preferences change with age
Newborns: sweet >
salty
4mnth olds: salty >
sweet
Sour/bitterness evokes
negative reactions
What mum eats will affect
familiarity
Carrot experiment; babies
less likely to show disgusted
faces when fed
Newborns show reflexive
reactions to touch
Establishes relationship
between caregiver and baby
Massage benefits infants of
depressed mothers (and the
depressed mother too)
Baby visual acuity improves
across the first few months
Newborns can see all colours
but cannot distinguish
brightness
Infants prefer to look at:
Patters over plain
Complex over simple
Red
Face over non-face
Faces are favourite! >
complex> patterns> red

Perceptual narrowing

Infants outperform adults at many perceptual discrimination tasks

o Face perception
o Speech perception
o Intermodal perception
With experiences, the brain is tuned to develop processes that an
individual would need on a daily basis perceptual narrowing

Face perception

Young infants able to

discriminate faces from
every species and race of the

world
As more experience is gained
with human faces, they lose
the ability to discriminate
other faces

Visual paired comparison task

Familiarisation and then
introduction of new faces
Babies look at novel monkey
faces for longer periods
Other-species effect:

(Pascalis, de

Haan, & Nelson (2002)

6 & 9 mnth olds, and adults

Tested on monkey and
human discrimination
6mth olds show novelty
preferences
At 9 months, infants lose the
ability to distinguish between
monkey faces

Other-race effect:
Tested on Caucasian infants
3, 6, and 9mth olds
Tested with Chinese, Middle
Eastern, and Caucasian faces
Also tested on Chinese
infants
With African, Chinese, and
Caucasian faces
Infants lose ability to
discriminate based on
appearances b/c they are not
exposed to them very often
See results in Lec 5

Speech perception

Young infants able to

discriminate phonemes from
every language in the world
With continued exposure to
their native language, they
lose the ability to

Inter-sensory perception

discriminate sounds from

other languages
Jap babies can discriminate
b/w L and R but lose this by
9mths
Experiences tune brain to
strengthen connections in
brain to better distinguish
sounds in own language

Conditioned Head Turn

Procedure (CHT)
Train babies to look at toys
when sound changes
Test whether they can
discriminate different (novel)
sounds
Discriminate between
different languages from
visual input only
As they gain experience with
how their language looks,
this ability is lost
Adults, from visual input,
cannot distinguish what
language a person is
speaking
Lose ability by 8mths old
Monolingual vs. bilingual
household

Can training retain these abilities?

Lets look at the face perception again

In a longitudinal study,
o Infants were tested at 6mnths able to discriminate monkey
faces
o 2 groups: 1 trained and 1 control
o Infants who were trained were able to distinguish monkey
faces at 6mnths and 9mnths
o Those who werent trained were not able to discriminate at
9mnths

6. Cognitive Development in
Infancy
Major Cognitive Achievement

Object permanence: understanding that objects continue to exist

even when they cant be perceived directly
o Building block of representational ability
o go outside theatre know youre still there notion of
permanence in the environment beyond direct sensory

Get babies interested in an object and then remove their perceptual

input
o Look at what babies do

What if we didn't develop object permanence?

More implications for interacting with the physical and social world
If baby does not have ability to comprehend that caregiver is
permanent difficult to build relationships
o Be happy when they return, look out for them, etc. builds
relationships

Early Piagetian Approaches

OP is major development of Sensori-Motor period (0-2 years)

Development is gradual from 0-18months and passes through substages
o That is, must be developed and babies are not born with it
o Gradually emerges in the first 18months
Development is driven by babies directly interacting with the
environment

Hide and Search Tasks

Get baby interested in a toy

Hide it under blanket
Babies know what to do

Stages of Object Permanence

Piaget sub-stages of Object Permanence Development
Stages 1-2 (1-4 months)

Stage 3 (4-8 months)

Stage 4 (8-12 months)

Baby doesn't get upset or

worried by the absence of
the toy
Don't search environment
When babies can see part of
the object visible, they'll
retrieve it
If object is completely
removed, they don't do
anything
Babies lift blanket to retrieve
object
BUT, babies tend to make a
systematic errorthe A-NotB error

The A-Not-B error

Hide the object under the

same location A several
times
In the babys view, put the
object under location B
Babies look for object under
A

A-Not-B error

General answer: Incomplete development of object permanence

At 12 months, infant concept of objects:
o Object X is in Position X
Is this the correct answer?

Rethinking the Development of Object Permanence:

Task Analysis

Maintain babys attention

Encode the object in their head where memory of object must be
maintained over time
Coordinate motor movements
Must inhibit previous learning

Alternative interpretations:
Object permanence involves development of ST
memory (Diamond )

Introduce varying delays between hide and search

Effects of DELAY:
o b/w 8-9 months, infants succeed at successively longer delays
The longer you have to retain the info, the poor the outcome
HOWEVER, children still go back to location A even when they can
see the object at location B

Object Permanence involves development of spatial

(location) memory (Bjork and Cummings)

Introduce more hiding locations

Babies do not make the A-Not-B error, they reached in the right
general direction but not the actual location

Hence,

There are additional performance components object memory,

spatial memory, coordinating reaching, etc.
Difficult to study development of object permanence

How do we measure OP without these barriers?

Habituation-Dishabituation

Manipulation of visual attention

Capitalises on fact that babies like novelty
Babies spend more time looking at new things/events
Process:
o Get baby interested in an image
o Show them a new image
o Baby spends more time looking at it
o Once they look away remove the image and repeat
process
o Baby will become familiar with face and visual attention will
habituate
o Now, show them an image of the same face but scrambled
up
o Can babies tell difference between test and habituation
stimulus?
Will they show an increase in attention?

Moving Screen Task (Baillargeon)

Habituation studies: examining A-Not-B Place error without

manual search (
Do objects continue to exist when removed from view?
Habituation of moving screen
o Introduce block on other side
Compare possible and impossible event
o Impossible: drawbridge continues to move even though
block was still there
If baby has OJ; this should be really confusing show different
levels of attention to possible and impossible events
5mtnh old babies:
o Show greater attention in impossible event

Train and Track studies (Baillargeon)

Babies showed more interest in the impossible event at 5months of

age
o Compare to Piagets theory of 2yrs for complete OP

Summary,

OP is central to infants adaptation and survival

The classic search tasks may not be the best way to study OP
because it includes many additional performance components

When performance components are minimised (e.g. the habituation

study), children as young as 4-6 months appear to have a basic
grasp on OP

7. Cognitive Development in
early-mid childhood (2-7 years)

How are young childrens thinking more sophisticated AND less

sophisticated than infants
o Cognitive advances
o Cognitive limitations

Cognitive advances

Growth is associated with the ability to represent the world

symbolically (wtf?)
o Mental representation
Common symbolic systems
o Language is the most important symbol system

Language

Drawing

Math
Play, etc.

At approx. 2yrs old, language vocabulary explodes

Fantasy play:

As infants develop, they become better at using fantasy and

imagination
Involve other children into their play
Ability to switch imaginary roles
o Ill be the doctor this time!

Symbolic drawing:
Drawing improves and becomes richer as infants age
Increased drawing skill indicates visuospatial and motor control
Increased symbolic use of drawing

Cognitive limitations

There are 2 categories of limitations:

o Perceived appearance vs. inferred reality

Perceptually bound inability to think outside the box
o Irreversibility vs. reversibility
Unable to reverse sequence (e.g. clip) in their head

Perceived appearance vs. inferred reality

Failure to conserve identity
(qualitative transformation)

Maynard the cat w/ a DOG MASK

Toddlers are confused when the cat switches identity
Very influenced by perceptual queues and not understanding that objects can
remain the same even if they change the way they look

Failure to conserve quantity

Understanding of quantity is overridden by salient perceptual change overrides
basic underlying knowledge
Conservation of number
Two identical rows of pennies
One row is spread further apart in front of the infant
which row has more pennies?
Conservation of volume
Same volume of liquid poured into differently sized containers
which has more liquid?

Irreversibility vs. Reversibility

Egocentric thinking and problems in perspective taking

That is, not being able to see the world from the perspective
of others
o Do you have a brother? What is his name? Yes, Tom
o Does Tom have a brother? No.
The 3-mountains problem
o Difficulty changing their perspective
Collective monologue
o Operating from own perspective

Analysing limitations of young childrens thinking

Researchers confuse Performance with Competence

Failure to get a task right vs. incompetence

the Case Study: Early understanding of number concepts
Basically a test of numerical logic
Possibility that child may be persuaded by perceptual change
vs. wording confusion
o Conservational structure children think theyre wrong
o Problems:
Understanding specific words
Misinterpreting question repetition
Modification of experiment by Rachel Gelman
o Same experiment as before but with minimal language and
children are trained by being rewarded for quantity
o So, what happens?
Children have an understanding of larger sample sizes
They are resistant to change in irrelevant features e.g.
appearance
o
Look
o
o

Summary

Basic symbolic abilities language, fantasy, play, drawing, etc.

Limitations:
o Perceptually bound
o Irreversibility (egocentric thinking)
Cannot picture a broken vase being fixed... (idk)
Research has challenged these limitations
o Possibility that limitations reflect performance in specific test
rather than lack of cognitive competence

8. Childrens understanding of health

and fitness

Encourage children to engage in healthy behaviours and thus

preventing sickness
Education and awareness of health consequences to discourage
risky behaviour
Piagetian theories of childrens understanding of health and
fitness
o Stages of understanding that closely follow the stages of
Piagets theory of cognitive development
o General developmental changes in childrens cognition
influence their understanding of health and fitness
There are three features of preoperational thinking in
childrens illness concepts (<7 years)

Understandin
g of
contagion is
OVERgenera
lised

Understandin
g of
contaminati
on is
UNDERgeneralised

Use of
immanent
justice

Young children determined whether an illness (e.g. cold,

toothache, scraped knee) could be caught by sitting
next to someone who has the illness
Answered YES to all perpetually bound by obvious
cues
Children overestimate how frequently diseases are
transmitted b/c reasoning is overshadowed by salient
perceptual cues
Problem: Complex open-ended questions about
unfamiliar domains
As the actual disease agent is not easily observable,
children tend to underestimate
Place grasshopper into juice and then remove it Is it
safe to drink now?
Observed the % rate of acceptance
From 3.5 6 years old, the juice is good to drink!
Problem: Implicit social demands Would you drink
the juice?
A boy disobeyed his mother and got the cold right after
was this because he disobeyed?
Punishment for breaking rues
Question is misleading and there is in implicit pressure
Problem: acceptance of immanent justice is socially
desirable and is not limited to preoperational children
e.g. religion AIDs

So, are there stage-like changes in childrens cognitive abilities OR,

are there differences in biological knowledge
Experiment: Modification of childrens understanding of contagion
and immanent justice about another persons/puppets explanation
of illness

o Social demand effects are minimised

Results:
o All age groups were able to correctly judge that colds are
transmitted by proximity and rejected the IJ idea
o Only 3rd grade children (8 years) were able to make accurate
judgements
o In younger age groups, contagion knowledge was correlated
with rejection of immanent IJ
E.g. if 50% children responded correctly for contagion,
about 50% also correctly rejected the IJ idea
Experience with contamination could boost understanding (Siegal
& Share)
o Queensland children aged <35mnths
o Shown a mouldy sandwich ask is it safe to eat?
92% correctly responded
Only 17% of control said no
o Now, cover the mould with vegemite
83% NO
Control 13% NO
Pre-operational children may actually be able to comprehend
invisible causes of illness/contamination
o Proximity and IJ are defaults when children possess no prior
knowledge of the specific disease
Experience with illness/contamination influences their
understanding
They are more capable of being taught illness than is widely
acknowledged

9. Emotional Development

Attachment is: strong affectionate tie, proximity associated with

positive emotions, separation associated with negative emotions
At 6mths spontaneous smiling, visible pleasure, clear separation
distress

Early attachment theories

Drive reduction theory

The mother satisfies many biological primary drives (e.g. hunger)

Hence, mothers presence is a conditioned stimulus capable of drive
reduction via Pavlovian conditioning process
o Mothers presence is associated with relief from anxiety
There is more to attachment than simply LEARNED drive reduction
(Harlow)
Food source mothers vs. cuddly mother-like surrogate
Contact comfort: mothers preferred cloth covered mothers even
when these mothers didnt feed them
Suggests that behaviours were not learned! instinctual

Ethological Approaches: An innate Predisposition to

attach

Konrad Lorenz study of imprinting in animals during a sensitive

period
Bowlbys Attachment Theory
o Infants attach to the most consistent caregiver but the quality
of attachments dependent upon parenting approach
o Parental response lead to patterns of attachment which lead
to internal working models
o Deprivation of caregiving during this period can have LT
consequences for social development

Measurement of early attachment (Mary Ainsworth ); SS

At 12-18 months, infants show evidence of attachment formation

Children DIFF in their attachment style
The Strange Situation Procedure

Attachment
Secure (60-65%)

InsecureAvoidant
(20%)

InsecureResistant

Insecure
Disorganised

Behavioural Description
Actively seeks proximity and contact at
reunion
Mum is the secure base explores and
then goes back to base
Distressed when separated but calms
down quickly when reunited
Do not cry/seek as much
Dont resist nor crave contact
Does not cry much at reunion
May avoid mother at reunion
Very upset and distressed when
separated
Actively seeks proximity (showing anger)
and continuously crying; does not calm
down
Disorientated
Dozed
Repetitive behaviours
Extreme approach/avoidance

Attachment styles are stable over long periods

Waters 20-year longitudinal study
o 50 infants assessed using SS at 12mths of age
o Reassessed at 21yo using Adult Attachment interview
72% adults received the same attachment classification

What causes secure attachment? Consequences?

Responsive parenting style during the first 6-12 months

o Respond quickly to babys emotional changes
o Feeding schedule cued by babys responses
o CONSISTENT
More positive emotions, more empathy, less aggressive, more
socially skilled, more friends, more confident, social, higher selfesteem
Peer relations: spend more times with peers and form friends with
other secure children

Disorganised and disorientated attachment; How?

Childhood trauma, parent addictions, loss of parent

10. Origins of Individual

Differences

Social consequences are associated with attachment

Secure attachment greater satisfaction, get along better with
parents, better educational outcome

Origins of Individual differences in attachment

Theory I: Parenting Environment

Attachment style reflected by child-parent interaction (John

Bowlby; Marie Ainsworth)
o Degree of responsive parenting i.e. a consistent response by
parents will thrive secure attachment
o Evidence:
Train caregivers in sensitive parenting and measure
before/after
Cultural differences in attachment style

Training in Sensitive Parenting: (Juff er )

90 Dutch families with an internationally adopted child

Randomly allocated Control or Intervention
Intervention group trained in Sensitivity and given feedback on
video performance

There are also cultural differences.

o Japan has the lowest avoidant and highest secure %

Theory II: Temperament

There exist stable individual differences in early emotional

expression and behaviour
This could be indicative of individual differences in CNS
structure/functioning (e.g. limbic system)
o Biologically driven differences

InhibitedUninhibited Dimension (Jerome Kagan )

All children can be located on a behavioural dimension describing

their reactions to novel and unexpected events
Biological basis arousal in the amygdala
o High arousal = inhibited
o Low arousal = uninhibited
Location is driven by
biology!

Inhibited

Uninhibited

High resting level of

activation
Hyperactive amygdala
Emotionally reactive due to
overstimulating amygdala
Reacts negatively in
10seconds b/c exposed to
too much novelty pushing
amygdala beyond the
tolerable limit
Resulting in resistant
attachment
Inhibited child
Reacts to unfamiliar events
with distress and avoidance
Requires more time to relax
in new situations
More unusual fears and
phobias

Uninhibited child
Enjoy unfamiliar situations
Responds with spontaneity to
novel situations laughing
and smiling easily
Able to tolerate large
stimulation

How do we assess Temperament?

Parental report
Laboratory observation
o E.g. measure temperament before testing
o Observe child in novel events
High emotional response = inhibited
Low emotional response = uninhibited
Psychophysiological assessment

Stability and Change in temperament Longitudinal

Study (Fox)

20% infants showed inhibited behaviours

40% infants comfortable with new experiences
30% of these groups retained their temperamental styles into
pre-school years
ASK: can these temperaments be modified?
o Infant temp. assessed at 14mnths
o Assessed again at 24 and 48mnths

Why is there a large drop at 24mnths? (above

graph)

The drop was related to the level of non-parental care

A significant exposure to adults (besides mum/dad) will reduce
inhibition
There are environmental influences on inhibited temp.
o Warm supportive parenting reduces anxiety
o Children exposed to mild separation stress show less inhibition
in the LT
b/c they adapt to changes and gradually less inhibited
Kagan children inherit physiology that biases them to have a
certain temperament
However, temperament can be altered through experience!

11. Memory Development

Objective

Understand methodological challenges that researchers face when

studying infant memory
Show age-related changes in encoding, retention, and retrieval
using operant condition
Give examples of DV used in infant memory studies

Give examples from OC studies to show how encoding, retention,

and retrieval processes improve with age

How do test infant memory?

Visual paired comparison
High amplitude sucking operant conditioning task
<6mnths

Mobile conjugate reinforcement kick their feet

Deferred imitation manipulate objects (>6mnths more
control over hands)

Visual Paired Comparison Task

High Amplitude Sucking

Mobile Conjugate
Reinforcement

Deferred imitation

Babies look longer at novel

There is a preference for
images they remember e.g.
mothers face
There is no preference
between images if they dont
remember
Familiar stimulus is paired
with novel stimulus
Operant conditioning; babies
learn the consequence of
sucking behaviour and
reinforcement (e.g. hearing
mothers voice)
Sounds that are most similar
to the womb are most
reinforcing (DeCasper &
Spence)
Remembers mums voice
reading Cat in Hat
Operant conditioning; babies
learn consequence of kicking
behaviour and movement of
overhead mobile
(reinforcement)
The puppet task
Remove mitten, shake it,
replace mitten
Demonstration group vs.
control group
Argued that it measures
problem solving and chance,
rather than memory

What is memory development?

Encoding: older infants learn faster than younger

Retention: older remember longer than younger
Retrieval: older are able to retrieve memories in different
situations better

INCOMPLETE

12. Social Development

Objective
o Explore age-related changes of ideas of self-concept and self
esteem
o Introduce research showing practices which improve selfesteem may not be beneficial
Self-esteem is judgements of worth, liking, and satisfaction
o Impact of domains on self-esteem depends on the degree of
importance and individual places on it
Social, academic, behavioural conduct, athletic, etc
Changes in self-esteem:
o Young children high
o Adolescence drop in SE, especially in girls
Due to parenting and relationships with opposite sex
o SE declines with old age
Self-esteem is related to mental health
o LOW SE associated with loneliness, anxiety, depression,
reduced life satisfaction
o Low SE in adolescence poor health, financial/ employment
difficulties, and criminality in adulthood
Is praise good for self-esteem?
o 80% parents believe praise helps young children
Experiment: Mueller & Dweck

10yo partake in reasoning problems of moderate difficulty and

manipulate feedback after success
o G1: you must be smart (praised ability)
o G2: you must have worked hard (praised effort)
o G3: no feedback (control)
Now ask them: what problems would you like to do at the end of
the session?
o Those who were praised chose easy problems later b/c

motivated by performance, rather than learning

PART 2 of experiment: partake in reasoning problems of High difficulty
o you performed a lot worse on these problems. You only got
<50% right
o Children were then asked to rate
Failure attributions
Desire to persist
Enjoyment
Why did you have a hard time with the second set of problems?
(failure attribution)
o Those praised for ability in Part 1 of experiment were more
likely to attribute failure to lack of ability
o Other groups attributed poor results to effort
How much would you like to take these problems home to work
on? (persistence)
How much did you like these problems? (enjoyment)
o After failure, those who were praised for their ability were
less likely to persist and enjoyed working on questions less
than children praised for effort
PART 3 of experiment:
Partake in reasoning problems with moderate difficulty to measure
post-failure performance
After failure, those who were praise for their ability performed
more poorly than those praised for effort or controls

Learning motivation

Children were given a choice to look at strategies (learning

motivation) OR looking at other students scores (performance
motivation)
Higher proportion of ability-praised children chose to read other
childrens scores
Praised-effort had the least proportion
Children were asked to anonymously report their scores to other
children at another school
Higher proportion of ability-praised children inflated their scores
Praised-effort had the least proportion

On an end-note; Mueller & Dweck (1998)

Praising childrens ABILITY

o Less likely to embrace challenge
o Attribute lack of failure to lack of ability
o Less likely to persist in difficult situations

o Less likely to seek out learning situations

o More like to misrepresent performance (cheat?)
Better to praise PROCESS rather than ability
o I can see that youre trying hard. Good job!
Early Process Praise predicts motivation frameworks
Praise given to 14-38mths during play session by mothers were
coded
They were then questioned about stability of traits, attribution for
success/failure at 7-8yo
o Children who experienced process praise as toddlers were
likely to report traits like malleable IQ, challenge preference,
and attribute failure to lack of effort
Take Home:
o self-esteem is important but praise may have adverse
consequences
o directing praise at children effort is beneficial for developing
motivational constructs and ability to cope with failure

1315. Social Psychology

Components:

Introduction
Sociability
Social perception
Prejudice
Social cognition
Communication

What is social psychology?

Scientific i.e. can be studied using empirical methods

Individuals are the unit of analysis
o Look at individual thoughts, behaviours, and actions
The imagined/implied presence is sufficient social is a construct
and in the mind
o Without social, there would be no language, opinions, and
words
Do not confuse with personality
o Personality is the differences in response to a situation
o Social psychology is how the social environment impacts
people e.g. being in a lecture dictates us to quieten down and
listen
A social variable that influences individual social
behaviour
o Nature vs. nurture

Nature vs. nurture

Margaret Mead

Proved cultural
determinism the culture
that we are raised in
determines who we are at
emotional and behavioural
levels
There were no sexual taboos
and adolescence were free of
stress
Demonstrated that cultural
norms and rules are
significant and that there are
no genetic limitations i.e. the
environment influences who
we are instead of genetic

Derek Freeman

Exposed that there is great

emphasis on female virginity
than western culture +
higher rates of juvenile
delinquency, sexual violence,
and suicide
Condemned by
anthropologists b/c went
against idealistic and hopeful
thinking
Implications human social
behaviour is influenced by
universal psychological and
biological foundations i.e.
cannot simply change rules

traits

of culture at will

Understanding social behaviour

Scientific method finding causal connections and specify

conditions
o What causes what, when, and why (IV, DV, mechanisms)
Common-sense does not distinguish between coincidence,
correlation, and causality
o E.g. alternate therapies, homeopathy, anecdotal, diets, etc.

Social psychology can be applied to everyday life

The
o
o
o

corner shop study (Forgas, 2009)

Can bad weather improve your memory?
More correct recall/recognition in negative mood
Consistent with negative affect which promotes more
attentive and accommodating processing (Fiedler, Bless)
The honking study

What informs social psychology?

Philosophy ideas about human nature

History social life analysis in previous periods
Evolutionary theory how humans are shaped by evolutionary
pressures

Anthropology social behaviours in other cultures in the past

and present

Philosop
hical
roots

Historical

Hedonism pleasure seeking & pain avoidance

Altruism we are drawn to others and intended to
help each other out
Rationalism people, more often than not, work
out the more rational solution
Stoicism life is bad + miserable and we have to
learn to accept it
Social psychology is a western product arising
from individualism & empiricism
Problematic to western cultures?
Face-to-face society vs. anonymous mass society
individualism, enlightenment i.e. social
relationships suffered

Evolution
ary

Sociability shaped by evolution and has a survival

value
Sociability vs. brain size
The social brain hypothesis (Dunbar, 2004)
Bigger brains required to service group cooperation
and met demands of group coordination which
encouraged sociability
Brain has evolved to manage social
relationships (Robin Dunbar, Steve Pinker)
Koestler problem of brain integration i.e.
reptilian brain not properly integrated with
neocortex drive to establish the defend territory

Nature of human sociability

Humans are extremely social as indicated by the anecdotal evidence

from abandoned children, hermits, shipwrecks, Schachter isolation
experiments (show difference of toleration in social isolation
neurological differences perceived)
Without social contact;
o Lose normal social relationship
o Lose sense of reality
o Unable to learn language
o Hallucinations
o Personality change
o Susceptible to brainwash

Importance of sociability

Individual differences in arousal levels

Introverts high level of resting activation level and do not seek
additional social stimuli
Extraverts opposite of above.
The effects of isolation from birth are irreversible whereby theyre
unable to distinguish reality and fantasy i.e. psychotic symptoms
Time studies have shown that adolescents and adults spend more
time with others than alone

Why?

Evolutionary past survival trait

Reinforcement positive response BUT unlikely because babies
show sociability from day 1 imply intrinsic
Social comparison need others to understand and represent the
word around us e.g. define colour, constructs, etc.
Social exchange both parties benefit

Evolutionary influences on social behaviour:

There exist behaviours that are culturally and historically universal

implies evolutionary progress

Evolutionary universals
In-group
Homogenous primary groups since early civilisation vs.
favouritis
heterogeneous mass society
m

Henri Tajfels minimal group experiements

Gender
difference
s

Allocate resources according to a pre-arranged matrix

Strategies: joint profit, group profit differences
Any feature can provoke discrimination
In-group favouritism observer where participants chose max.
difference
Women are choosers and men are seekers
Differing mating preferences, jealousy patterns, perceptions, and
judgements

Robert Trivers Parental Investment Theory

Higher investing sex (i.e. women) selective

Lower investing sex (men) less selective, competitive
NB: contraception has not changed womens behaviour thus
suggesting an innate biology

Marty Haselton Error Management Theory

Need for
identity
and
attachme
nt

Judgements are not about accuracy in deciphering the other, but

rather to minimise the most costly errors
In males:
sexual over-perception bias
False negatives (missing mating opportunity) are costly,
hence false positives are preferable to missed
opportunities
Overestimate female sexual availability
In females:
Commitment under-perception bias
False positives are costly
E.g. to assume commitment when there is none
Thus, underestimate and critical about male attempt to
approach
Human evolution small group life initially
Identity through group membership
Small primary groups extinguished due to:
Philosophy of enlightenment
Freedom, liberation, and independence
Industrialisation

We are now more mobile and venture outside the

community
French revolution: Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite
Liberty, Equality, Brotherhood
Dahrendorf the above ideologies compete i.e. cannot
instil both freedom and equality individualism faded out
brotherhood

So how do we achieve tolerance if groups exist?

1. Individualism

Respect individual differences

2. Multi-culturalism

Ineffective as it encourages group identity

What do we do about intolerable cultures (e.g. genital
mutilation)?

Societies

Mass society: large-scale mass culture that is an impersonal,

social institution
Whilst labour and wealth has increased, individuals have suffered
from social isolation, unmet status, intimacy, and impoverish social
relationships
Zimbardo loneliness and shyness are an epidemic
Unfulfilled social identity needs drives materialistic tendencies
o Utility vs. identity consumption
From Diener, E. & Seligman, M. (2004) graph;
o Wealth does not increase happiness
o Lord Layard suggests we raise income tax to increase
happiness
As people would work less since theyll be taxed more

Psychology of advertising and marketing

Psychological manipulation by selling status, glory, and identity

Advertising is not about the product utility, but rather the identity
and status
Consider brands and bottled water

Overview

Human social behaviour is shaped by evolutionary and historical

influences
Traditional vs. mass society

How to achieve tolerance?

Gender differences
Identity and consumption
Believing foolish ideas e.g. alternative medicine

Social perception and Cognition

How do we form impressions? How do we predict behaviour? Mental
shortcuts? Schemas?

Interpretation, analysis, and recall of information about our social

world
Question: impressions, prediction, schemas, mental shortcuts,
causes of behaviour (attribution theory), error bias, feelings
influence thoughts
Fiske, 2004 our experiences are filtered through a psychological
lens i.e. our perceiving apparatus
o Each person passes reality through a different lens
Shared knowledge is often vague, uncertain, and second-hand
o Facts encourage disagreement and differing interpretations
o Believers vs. deniers

Physical vs. social perception

Latent vs. manifestable (immediately observable) features

Inferences: social perception(latent) must be inferred and instructed
because it is NOT immediately observable
o Not testable
Thus, subject to self-serving bias
o Tendency to attribute positive events to their own character
but attribute negative events to external factors
Social perception is highly constructive and what we know
influences what we see
o The same person may be seen differently by different people
Thus, accuracy is problematic and fragile

Accuracy in perception

How
o
o
o
How

do we assess accuracy?
Target
Measure
Criterion (a baseline)
good are we at perceiving emotions?

o Landis; complex emotions

Photographing
participants
undertaking
highly
emotional activities (e.g. holding frogs) and asking
others to determine the emotion
Conclusionpeople are not every good at perceiving
others feelings
Because he didnt arouse simple emotions but
rather a complex combination
o Darwin
Facial expression by humans (e.g. smile) is similar to the
teeth-baring
of
dogs

suggesting
animal
communication
o Ekman
Built on Darwin, If Darwinian theory true, people should
be able to distinguish emotions irrespective of cultural
differences
Core human emotions are universally recognised +
neurological basis

o Strack et al. facial feedback

Facial movement influences emotional experiences

Pen in mouth

Accuracy in Social Perception

Effects of training may actually confuse researchers in perceiving

characteristics--overthinking
Cronbachaccuracy is a multi-factor skill(Cronbach)
o Stereotype accuracytype
o Differential accuracyuniqueness

What can influence perception accuracy?

Expectations
o More likely to find supporting evidence when you have
expectations
Cognitive effects
o Mood influences how behaviour is perceived
Perceiving relationship conflicts
Forgas et al; how does mood affect perception of social
behaviours?

o People in a bad mood saw far more negative than

positive actions

Hypnotic mood induction watch video of interaction

mood influences what is percieved

Mental shortcuts or heuristics

Heuristics are mental shortcuts

o Cognitive economy life is easier b/c thinking becomes

effortless
o Evolutionary origins use past experience to form
judgements

Heuristic
Representativenes
s

Description
Judging by similarity/ resemblance
All blondes are dumb

False consensus

Belief that everyone thinks like us

Anchoring

Starting estimates have strong effects

Thus, when doing experiments, we dont
offer suggestions but rather an open-ended
structure
Rely more on initial information and less on
subsequent data which may be factual
Idea that comes to mind easily
Highly salient and controversial events
Terrorism vs. car accidents
o More people die from car accidents per
year than terrorism events YET
terrorism is more feared
o After 9/11, no. of people who travelled
via car increased no. accidents also
increased
Stories/anecdotes vs. facts/statistics
Recent exposure
Behavioural priming
Poster effect

Availability

Priming effects

Counterfactuals

Embodiment an
idea, quality, or
feeling

What might have been

E.g. only just missed the bus more upset
even though events are identical i.e. the bus
comes at the same time everyday
Gilovich, 1995
Warm/cold, stable/unstable
Being
physically
stable
will
increase
perception and decrease preference
May affect accuracy
Physical experience + social stability
Those who perceive themselves to be in a
higher physically stable condition would have
a lower preference for stability and vice versa

Impression formation

How is information combined to form an impression?

o Holistic models (Gestalt)
Traits are non-permanent and change as they merge
together
o Atomistic theory (mechanical)
Maths can be used to derive impressions
Cognitive algebra (5 + 2 = hes cool)
o Stable trait values
The Gestalt model (holistic approach)

o Gestalt theories in perception

E.g. movies no actual movement but we perceive

motion same interpretation can be applied to social
perception i.e. there is actually no social (b/c it is a
construct) but we interpret them to be social
Traits are subject to interpretations

o Central vs. peripheral traits

Central vs. peripheral traits

Big impact vs. insignificant
Central traits change impression formation significantly
E.g. warm vs. cold
The substitute of a single central traits completely
changes impression
Kelley

15. Impression formation

Biasing factors in impression formation
Halo effects

Exhibiting one outstanding favourable trait e.g. warm,

causes us to assume all other traits are favourable
Why do we ask for celebrity opinion when they dont

actually study the said topic?

Physical attractivenessDion, Burscheid, and

Walster
Compare photos of attractive and less attractive
people + traits
People often extrapolate(apply) attractiveness as an
indicator of positive traits

Physical height Wilson

Student lecturer vs. professor lecturer

Students were asked to estimate the heights of the
lecturers whereby the professor achieved a higher
mean height
Thus, academic status impacts height

Unusual names McDavid and Harari

Rate essays of 11-year-olds
Names impact grades
Popular names are positive
Experiment (Birmingham): 400 psychiatrists diagnosed a
24yr old man as:
Schizophrenic when called Matthew
Lazy drug user when called Wayne

Primary effect

Positivity/negativit
y bias

Implicit
personality
theories

Asch recited the traits; intelligent, industrious, and

impulsive
Participants believed the person to be intelligent
When order was reversed, person was perceived to be
impulsive
Recency effects in some other conditions
Mood effects on primacy
Start off with a Non-neutral impression
Baseline expectation: positive behaviour, socially desirable
In the absence of information positive bias
But, negative information often has more weighting and is
overemphasised

Private theories about people

Assumptions based on our own perceptions about which
characteristics we associate personality traits
Based on personal experiences and is partly
individual/cultural
How would you complete these sentences?

 Julie is bright, lively, and (thin/fat)

Susan is cheerful, positive, and (ugly/pretty)

Person prototypes
and stereotypes

Schemas

Simplified guides to behaviour cognitive economy

saving mental effort thus efficient
Easily formed most often in childhood
It is enduring and slow to change
Stereotypes were stronger and more negative in times of
conflict (Nazis)
Role of social policy e.g. feminism, gay rights movement,
migrants
Government decisions and actions contributing to the
wellbeing of population and individuals
Involves policy areas such as: social security and
welfare, disability, health, education, employment
services, Indigenous peoples, community services
and child protection
Influence social cognition (encoding, storage, retrieval)
Schemas are an organised pattern of thought and
behaviour that organises categories of information and the
relationships among them
Provision of framework for organisation and
interpretation of data
Information that is consistent with schema is remembered
Saves us considerable mental effort efficient
Acts as a cognitive filter during attention and encoding
Perseverance effect impression persists despite
conflicting evidence
Attractive female is an engineer not possible, must
be doing it for attention, must have cheated
Ignore or forget facts that are inconsistent with
stereotype
Also promote self-fulfilling prophecy whereby others
confirm our beliefs
Unattractive obese female is an engineer confirms
belief that all female engineers are lame and uncaring
of physical
If people spent the time to carefully consider all
information, it would result in fair treatment of others.
However, we all have a tendency to rely on cognitive habits

when given a barrage of complex information whereby we

pay greater attention to and remember facts consistent
with the stereotype (whilst forgetting about inconsistent
facts) prejudice and discrimination

Attribution theory; perceiving causality

Why do people act the way they do Attribution

Why do we feel, think, and act the way we do Self-attribution
Humans tend to seek causality and perceive reality in a humanistic
way
Heider & Simmel triangle and circle experiment
People attributed human qualities e.g. scared circle, brute
triangle, chasing, etc.

Michotte
Red ball, blue ball speed, timing, sizes, and action
The objective of attribution theory is to infer causality in order
to predict
Internalcaused by a persons traits (disposition)
Externalcaused by a situation e.g. lecture hall

Weiner: Internal/External and un/stable causes

Stable

Unstable

Internal

Ability

Effort

External

Situation e.g. task

difficulty

Luck

Jones and Davis (1965) discounting principle

Tendency to apply less importance to one potential cause of a

behaviour when other potential causes are present
Behaviour caused internally (dispositional internal
motivation) when:
(a) Not externally explained (not socially desirable), and
(b)Unique, non-common effects

Attribution of causality
Kelley -3D co-variation model
Consistency

Consensus

Distinctivenes
s

Does the person always behave this way in this

situation?
Extent to which behaviour between actor and
stimulus is consistent across time and
circumstances
How behaviour varies across settings and
time
E.g. in classroom, party, work, bar
What do others do?
Extent that others act the same way toward the
same stimulus as the actor does
How behaviour varies across people
Seymour, tome, dick, harry
Does the person behave this way in other
situations?
Extent that actor behaves in the same way to
different stimuli
How behaviour varies across targets
Susie, Mary, Holly, Mary Teresa

Consider:

A server flirts with a customer

o Server does not flirt with others (high distinctiveness)
o Other servers also flirt with same customer (high consensus)
o Server also flirts with customer at other times (high
consistency)
Thus, servers behaviour is attributed to external causes e.g. the
customer is attractive
Can I assume that high external (??)

Consider:

A server flirts with a customer

o Server also flirts with other customers (low distinctiveness)

o No other servers flirt with the customer (low consensus)
o Server also flirts with other customers (high consistency)
Thus, attributed to external causes e.g. the server likes to flirt
Can I assume that low internal (??)

Attributional errors

Not all attributions are rational

Cognitive bias limitations of imperfect human cognitive process
Motivational bias we are not neutral to understand science
Attribution errors include:

Bias towards
perceiving
causality; Heider
& Simmel

Fundamental
attribution error

Actor-observer
effect

Salience effects

Just world bias

We see others behaviours as intentional (even

if there wasnt any)

Focus on actors intention and blind to external

situation
Overestimate internal causes and ignore
external causes
Are lecturers as smart as they seem?
Questioner vs. contestant
Own behaviour external causes
Others behaviour internal causes
I failed the test because it was too hard but Sam
failed because shes dumb and stupid
Actor (us) focuses on external
Observer focused on actor (internal)
Attributors underestimate the power of
situational constraints
Taylor Fiske -- salience effects
Most salient actor is given causal status i.e. can
see their faces
This can be reversed when seeing yourself in a
mirror
Manipulate visual focus to change inference
impression
Lerner
Blame the victim to explain unpredictable and
undeserved suffering
Frightening to realise the world is bad thus,
blame victim

The 2-factor theory of emotion

Schachters idea that emotional experience is a result of a two-step

self-perception process in which people:
1. Experience psychological arousal
2. Seek to explain it
Idea that motional experience is not directly observed
inside but must be inferred from environment around us
Arousal cognition attaches label to it emotion

Wrong cause?

Misattribution of arousal: people mistake inferences about what is

causing them to feel the way they do (e.g. attraction to someone)

Self-attributing emotion
Valins

Nisbett & Schachter

Playboy photos
False heart feedback
Self-attribution of arousal
Heartbeat influences liking

Pain can be interpreted to

other factors thus less
painful
Shocks better tolerated after
placebo pills and expecting
arousal
Placebo effects on insomnia
Misattributing arousal to pill
(i.e. a cause other than an
actual cause makes it easier
for us to cope)
Excitation transfer
Arousal from film transferred
to another action e.g. insults

Storms and Nisbett

Zillman

By manipulating attribution of emotion, its possible to change the

meaning of that state
Universal human assumption that we have a will
o Intend to walk to a chair walking to the chair
o Internal causation of intention
Wegner we respond rapidly and without rationality to situational
cues
o When people ask why?
We come up with a story to justify our actions

Psychological reaction ask how much do we value something

o When lost, ask again significantly overvalues what you lost

16. Attribution of cognition

How do we know what we think? Why am I doing this? Whats the cause
of my behaviour?

Attribution of behaviour/motivation?

Intrinsic motivation
Extrinsic motivation

Intrinsic

vs. Extrinsic motivation

Perform activity for own sake attribution of intrinsic behaviour

When given an external reward changes self-perception
o Infer external motivation
Less likely to continue behaviour when reward taken away

Self-handicapping

Guarding the self by creating external causes for anticipated failure

Undergo task and expect not to be very good at it offered a
harmful and helpful drug
Majority of people expecting to fail chose the harmful drug so that
they can blame an external reason for their failure
Those who expected to succeed

Self-handicapping defends peoples ego from failures

o Not going to lectures, not prepared for test get blind drunk
right before the test fails well I was blind drunk... Im not
actually dumb

Self-perception theory

When attitudes and feelings are uncertain or ambiguous, we infer

these states by observing our behaviour and the situation in which
it occurs
When making judgement of ourselves:
o Self-serving Attributions: ones success is due to internal
factors whereas failures are due to external, situational factors
o Defensive Attributions: explanations for behaviour that
avoid vulnerability and mortality

Why do we do it?

Maintain self-esteem
Want to be well-thought of and admired
Positive social standing

Affect and attribution

How you feel also affects the nature of your self-attribution

Implications of Attribution Theory

Depression and learned helplessness

o Depressogenic attributions (cognitive behavioural therapy)
Blame themselves for failures
o Temporary mood similar effects
Attribution and addiction
o Interval vs. external causation Is it an illness or crime?
o External attribution implies helplessness
o The 2 diff attributions have different recovery methods
Internal implies change (its my fault)
External (nothing I can do about it, no choice on my
part)
Attribution and unemployment
o External attributions imply lack of control; internal attribution
more unpleasant, but implies potential mastery

Attributions

Cross-cultural differences observed

o Differences between Western, individualistic cultures and
Eastern, collective cultures
Ideology about the world
o How do we blame misfortunes? Internal or external? Blame
the social system?
o Social science students saw poverty, unemployment, etc. as a
result of the system

Stereotyping and Prejudice

How do we feel about newcomers?

o Unfavourable view on Muslims
Prejudice: tendency to judge a person based on their cultural,
ethnic, racial, or religious attitudes
o Generally negative attitudes towards outgroups
Three components:
o Cognitive what we know about the stereotype
o Affective how we feel about them
o Behavioural how we behave towards them

Measurement

Questionnaires
Bogus pipeline get people to tell the truth by lying about lie
detector
Implicit methods (honking study) German vs. Australia car
Physiological measures arousal states
Pupillometrics changing pupil sizes in response to stereotypes
Modern racism scale?
o I treat everybody the same Im not happy about aboriginal
students being given special services

Stereos not based on personal experience but rather on shared

consensus group idea

All our minds are designed to categorise into schemas

Why?
o Cognitive economy
o Adaptive facilitates and simplifies future reactions

Showed subjects picture of a girl and manipulated her name

Categories

Why do categories build easily?

o Aids rapid identification
o Adaptive
o Evolutionary value able to detect in-group from outgroup
When given an image of black and white man
o Black stereotype
o American students razor in the hand of black person
In complex social events, our stereotypic nature will bias our
perception
o Black person shoves white person violet
o White to black playing around
Effect of schema complexity on impressions
o How do you respond white/black applicant based on their
credentials?
Strong credentials black was given higher marks
compared to black
Weak credentials black was given lower marks
compared to white
o Tend to overvalue extreme outgroup-member information

Illusory correlation

Illusory correlation: bias to overestimate correlations of minorities

doing rare events/behaviours especially when the event is negative
o To perceive a link when here isnt one
o Rare groups and rare behaviours are distinctive
Illusory outgroup homogeneity/ in-group heterogeneity

o Perceive own group to be made up of unique individuals

o Perceive outgroup as all similar ignoring individual
differences

How do we feel about outgroup?

Dislike differences and unfamiliar evolutionary universal

People like familiarity shown photos of people
o Participants had no memory of the photos, but had a positive
emotional reaction
Human tendency to identify with a group and hate outgroups

Why?

Psychoanalytical explanation
o Reason for hate may be due to hatred towards parents
o Those who had a hatred towards outgroups tend to have
hatred towards autocratic and dominant parent usually
father
I don't dare rebel against my father, so I will hate society
instead
Outgroup hatred was greater in difficult, frustrating times
o Economic downturn and number vs. lynchings (white racist
groups would kill/hang black members) in US
o Good years = less lynching
Realistic conflict model
o Sherif Robbers Cave experiment
Stage 1: group building
Stage 2: introduce friction, competition intergroup
conflict
2 groups compete and use underhand tactics to
make sure other group does badly
Ask Who are your best friends?
o Chose own group more
Stage 3: introduce integration, cooperation, teamwork
joint outcomes

Why is it so common?

There is a grain of truth in some stereotypes

African-American children were actually more aggressive in terms of
both self-ratings and peer-ratings

Subconscious prejudice (Greenwald & Banaji)

Subconscious negative associations

The Implicit Associations Test
o Measure implicit prejudice and stereotyping
o Positivenegative, Anglo-SaxonArab name

Inside our heads, all in-groups are associated with positive qualities
and vice versa.
People find it hard to associate +ve with outgroup
This is evident of implicit prejudice
Internal representation:
o In-group = good
o Out-group = bad
Blacks also show +ve associations to with
Implies a shared consensus on the majority vs. minority
Who wouldn't show these effects?
o Those who didn't grow up with a culture
o A being from another planet
Can these implicit mental associations be eliminated?
Are implicit thoughts linked to explicit prejudice and prejudiced
behaviours?
o This is an evolutionary adaptation
o Difficult to eliminate cannot control peoples thoughts
Cannot behave in socially unacceptable ways

The behavioural component

How can we promote behavioural tolerance to outgroups?

Education
External norms and rules to prohibit manifestations
Sanctions and punishment
Individualism vs. multiculturalism
Re-categorisation what is similar between different people?
o We are all human beings
o We all belong to the same one group humanity
o Intergroup contact
Evidence is contradictory
Not always successful
Black kids tend to stick together

17. interpersonal communication

Communication

2 large systems of communication

o Verbal
o Non-verbal
Encoding translating intention to message

Language acquisition

Bruner: human ability to engage in social interaction from birth that

makes language acquisition possible
Skinner learned
Chomsky innate

Indexical language

The meaning of utterances is depended on existing shared

knowledge
o Anything can be made to mean almost anything depending on
the shared context
The meaning of any sentence depends on the context

Language and thought

Does changing the words we use influence the attitudes we have?

Vygotsky:
o Internalisation of tools led to higher thinking skills
o Externalisation
Message is a transition from external to internal
Transformation involves external means of thinking and
learning to use symbols to control and regulate ones
thinking
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis:
o The linguistic relativity principle, or the SapirWhorf hypothesis, is the
idea that differences in the way languages encode cultural and cognitive
categories affect the way people think, so that speakers of different

languages will tend to think and behave differently depending on the

language they use.

Social markers of speech

Speech styles communicate about person and context

o Lecturing vs. conversational
o Accent
o Dialect
Howard Giles language and social identity/class
Speech accommodation status, class (people adjust their speech
patterns to accommodate to others)
o Convergence individual adjusts speech patterns to match
those belonging to another group
o Divergence individual adjusts speech patterns to be distinct
from people belonging in another group

Pragmatics how we say it

Past/present tense indicates dis engagement

Linguistic abstraction theory
o Action verbs are most concrete
o State verbs are intermediate
o Adjectives are most abstract
Linguistic intergroup bias:
o In-group positives abstract, negatives concrete
o Outgroup negatives abstract, positive concrete

Nonverbal communication

Communication without words

Functions: communicating self-presentation, attitudes, emotions,
situation management
Cues include:
o Facial expressions
o Tone
o Gestures
o Body position/movement
o Touch
o Gaze
Some nonverbal cues can contradict spoken words
o Sarcasm
o Communicating inferiority, superiority, and friendliness

Mirror neurons

Respond when we perform and action and see someone else

perform the same action
Basis of our ability to feel empathy

When we see someone crying, our mirror neurons fire just as if we

were crying ourselves

Eye contact

Staring is a cross-species challenge Ellsworth

Intimacy/challenge
Produces arousal
Interpretation dependent on context
Eye contact 25-75% of the time
Depends on relationship, gender, and action
Listeners look more than speakers
Intimacy/equilibrium model argyle and dean
o Too much intimacy in one channel is compensated by reduced
intimacy in another