The One About Me, Friendships, and the Final Blog

Looking through the chapter, though romantic relationships are looked at a great deal, I was struck by how much my friendships at college lined up with the characteristic being discussed. Particularly, how proximity, exposure, and similarity play into the development of relationships.

To elaborate, the Proximity Effect is the idea that people usually form relationships with those who are physically near them (Latané et al., 1995). In fact, one study found that college students were more likely to form friendships with other residents in nearby apartments than those students that lived further away (Festinger et al., 1950). In a similar vein, the Mere Exposure Effect is the tendency to more positively evaluate a stimulus the more often one is exposed to it (Zajonc, 1968). This effect has even been demonstrated with stimuli that were presented too fast to be fully registered by the participants (Kuntz-Wilson & Zajonc, 1980). Specifically, the participants were shown several stimuli for one to five milliseconds, and some stimuli were presented more often than others. After this presentation, the participants were shown each of the stimuli and asked if they liked it and had seen it before. Though they usually said they had never seen the stimuli, they would still more positively rate the stimuli that had been presented more often than the ones that had been presented less often. Finally, when discussing what factors lead to forming a relationship, Similarity was a major one. That is, people tend to form relationships with people who are similar to them in multiple ways. There are four types of similarity that are most relevant: demographic, attitudes, attractiveness, and subjective experience. Specifically, it has been found that friends, lovers, dates, and partners tend to resemble each other on a variety of demographic information (age, education, race, SES, etc.) more so than randomly paired couples (Warren, 1966). Similarly, it has been found that people tend to marry others who share their political attitudes, religiosity, and values (Luo & Klohnen, 2005). Though this deals more so with romantic relationships, attractiveness also plays a part in the formation of relationships, so much so that it gets its own concept. The Matching Hypothesis is the idea that people tend to form romantic relationships with others who are similarly attractive (Feingold, 1988). Finally, similarity in terms of subjective experience can trigger the formation of a relationship. In other words, people tend to like others who have the same or similar experiences as them because they feel they have shared a subjective experience, which has been called “I-sharing” (Pinel et al., 2006). Furthermore, it has been found that people do tend to like people they have “I-shared” more so than others, even if the “I-shares” have dissimilar backgrounds to them (Pinel et al., 2006).

Looking at my friendships here at Southwestern, all these things ring true, except for similarity in attractiveness. That is, the majority of my friends lived on the same floor as me freshmen year, so we were close in proximity to each other and exposed to one another on a daily basis. Furthermore, my closest friends are the ones that I have the most in common with (similarities). For instance, my best friend is my roommate, so we often share subjective experiences, which fortifies our friendship. Furthermore, we have similar backgrounds (such as SES and divorced parents) and similar attitudes and opinions about things (such as gay marriage and abortion).

Feingold, A. (1988). Matching for attractiveness in romantic partners and same-sex friends: A meta-analysis and theoretical critique. Psychological Bulletin, 104, 226-235.

Festinger, L., Schachter, S., & Back, K.W. (1950). Social pressures in informal groups: A study of human factors in housing. New York: Harper.

Kuntz-Wilson, W., & Zajonc, R.B. (1980). Affective discrimination of stimuli that cannot be recognized. Sience, 207, 557-558.

Latané, B., Liu, J.H., Nowak, A., Bonevento, M., & Zheng, L. (1995). Distance matters: Physical space and social impact. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 21, 795-805.

Luo, S., & Klohnen, E.C. (2005). Assortative mating and marital quality in newlyweds: A couple-centered approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88, 304-326.

Pinel, E.C., Long, A.E., Landau, M.J., Alexander, K., & Pyszcynski, T. (2006). Seeing I to I: A pathway to interpersonal connectedness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90, 243-257.

Warren, B.L. (1966). A multiple variable approach to the assertive mating phenomenon. Eugenics Quarterly, 13, 285-298.

Zajonc, R.B. (1968). Attitudinal effects of mere exposure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Monograph Supplement, 9(2), 1-27.

The One About Me, Clapping, and Social Loafing

Slacking off is a common occurrence. Even in this fine, liberal arts, private university, people slack. Group projects, in my opinion, are one of the situations that commonly lead to slacking. Another, more psychological, term for slacking in groups is Social Loafing, which is the reduction in individual performance on easy tasks that is produced when in a group and where contributions are pooled (Latané, Williams, & Harkins, 1979). In other words, when people are working in groups, and don’t believe their individual contributions can be calculated, they tend to slack and not work as hard as they would have had they been working alone.

The concept of Social Loafing is something I am very experienced with. For instance, I’ll admit that I have a tendency to slack off with group projects, unless at the end of the project we all individually rate each other in terms of our contribution to the project. In that case my individual effort can be calculated, so therefore I will almost never slack off. Interestingly, when I do slack off, my main reason behind is that I don’t want to put forth a lot of effort and end up doing all the work. This train of thought is sometimes called the Sucker Effect (Houldsworth & Mathews, 2000; Kerr, 1983; Shepperd, 1993). In other words, no one wants to be the hardworking 'sucker', so this effect is likely to lead to poor group performance if everyone has the same thought of not wanting to be the one to do all the work, thus withholding their efforts.

Social Loafing affects more than just effort in a group project, but also effort in clapping. That is, people tend to exert less effort and clap less loudly when they are in groups compared to when they are alone (Latané, Williams, & Harkins, 1979). This is something I experienced just before writing this blog. I was attending an on campus event, How to Build a Fire, in which multiple people perform skits, read poetry, etc. It was amazing, but I noticed the people around me, and myself, weren’t clapping very loudly nor very vigorously, though I knew many of us were enjoying the performance. Thanks to my knowledge of Social Psychology and the concept of Social Loafing, I realized what was going on. After that point I tried to put forth more effort into my clapping and combat Social Loafing, at least for myself. I don’t know if I caused anyone around me to clap just a little bit louder, but at least I know I put my full effort into something, even if it was just clapping.

Houldsworth, C., & Mathews, B.P. (2000). Group composition, performance and educational attainment. Education and Training, 42, 40-53.

Kerr, N.L. (1983). Motivation losses in small groups: A social dilemma analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45, 819-828.

Latané, B., Williams, K., & Harkins, S. (1979). Many hands make light the work: The causes and consequences of social loafing. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 822-832.

Shepperd, J.A. (1993). Productivity loss in performance groups: A motivation analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 113, 67-81.

Demo-A-Concept Blog: The One About My Friend, Driving, and The Actor-Observer Effect

Most people would like to think they are mindful and unbiased when regarding other people and situations. Unfortunately, we commonly fall prey to biases, especially when we are stressed or tired, because they make processing and interpreting the information around us easier. The biggest and most pervasive of the biases is the Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE), which is the tendency to focus on personal attributes rather than situational attributes when explaining a behavior (Ross, 1977).

The classic (and first) experiment that looked into this phenomenon was one in which participants read a student’s essay, and then were told that the student was either assigned the position they took in the essay or they freely chose it (Jones & Harris, 1967). Overall, the participants were more likely to infer the student’s true attitude when they were told the position had been freely chosen than if it had been assigned. But the participants were still likely to infer, though not as greatly, the student’s true attitude even if they knew the position had been assigned. This phenomenon has been demonstrated in many other studies, but the concept I am aiming to demonstrate in this blog is more of a subset of the FAE, the Actor-Observer Effect.

The Actor-Observer Effect is the tendency people have to explain their own behavior using situational attributes, but use personal attributes to explain others’ behavior (Jones & Nisbett, 1972; Watson, 1982). An example of this is, when asked to explain why inmates committed their crimes, prison counselors spoke of stable personal characteristics, while the prison inmates talked about unique situational factors (Saulnier & Perlman, 1981).

In my video I first ask a friend about a situation in which someone cuts her off while driving, and how that would make/made her feel. She responds by saying she gets immediately angry and calls them names, and is frustrated. On the other hand, when asked about a situation in which she cuts someone off, she responds by talking about situational reasons for it, such as being in a rush or the person in front of her driving too slowly. None of these situational factors were mentioned when she was being cut off, instead only anger and naming calling was brought up, but when she was the one cutting people off, many possible reasons came up. This, of course, does not make my friend a bad or self-centered person, since we all fall prey to the Actor-Observer Effect from time to time.

But why do we fall prey to such things as the Fundamental Attribution Error and the Actor-Observer Effect? One theory is that social perception, or interpreting a situation, is a two part process (Gilbert & Malone, 1995). The first part includes identifying the behavior and making a quick personal attribution. The second part is an adjustment or correction in our assessment in order to account for situational factors. The first part is easy and always happens; the second part is harder to do and therefore doesn’t always occur. One explanation for why it’s so easy to attribute others’ behaviors to personal factors is that we have a perceptual bias that causes us to focus more on the actor than the situation as a whole, which causes the actor to become highly salient (Heider, 1958). Therefore, we attribute behaviors to what is salient to us, which in most cases is the person. Salience can also play a role in why the Actor-Observer Effect occurs. In other words, reasons for our own actions, such as situational factors, are highly salient to us, while reasons for other people’s behaviors might not be as known and therefore not as salient. For instance, when we cut people off we know exactly why we did it, which makes it easy for us to explain our behavior with situational attributes. But when someone else cuts us off, we have no idea why they did this or what situation they are in, so we fall back on what is easier, which is making personal attributes for the behavior.

Gilbert, D.T., & Malone, P.S. (1995). The correspondence bias. Psychological Bulletin, 117, 21-38.

Heider, F. (1958). The psychology of interpersonal relations. New York: Wiley.

Jones, E.E., & Harris, V.A. (1967). The attribution of attitudes. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 3, 1-24.

Jones, E.E., & Nisbett, R.E. (1972). The actor and observer: Divergent perceptions of causality. In E.E. Jones, D.E. Kanouse, H.H. Kelley, R.E. Nisbett, S. Valins, & B. Weiner (Eds.), Attribution: Perceiving the causes of behavior (pp.79-94). Morristown, NJ: General Learning Press.

Ross, L. (1977). The intuitive psychologist and his shortcomings: Distortions in the attribution process. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 10, pp. 174-221). New York: Academic Press.

Saulnier, K., & Pearlman, D. (1981). The actor-observer bias is alive and well in prison: A sequel to Wells. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 7, 559-564.

Watson, D. (1982). The actor and the observer: How are their perceptions of causality divergent? Psychological Bulletin, 92, 682-700.

The One About Cognitive Dissonance, Decision-Making, and Colleges

Walking through life, I have had to make many decisions. Some of them were very tough, or at least they felt so at the time. The toughest decisions to make were usually the ones that had choices that were equally appealing. These decisions have ranged from ‘what college to go to’ to ‘which candy to choice from at the store’. The cognitive dissonance experienced when having to make these tough choices is what I most related to while reading this chapter.


To elaborate further, Cognitive Dissonance Theory is the idea that people experience tension and discomfort when holding inconsistent cognitions, and therefore become motivated to reduce the inconsistencies and establish consistency (Festinger, 1957). Another way of looking at it is if a person’s behaviors go against, or are inconsistent with, their attitudes or beliefs, they become driven to find a way to make their behaviors consistent with their attitudes. Furthermore, since by this time they have already committed the behavior, and cannot change that, the only choice left is to change their attitudes. One of the ways this cognitive dissonance can be experienced is after making a difficult decision between equally desirable alternatives, or Post-decision Dissonance. Most people’s attitude would be to want both alternatives, yet their behavior would be to choose only one, which makes their attitude and behavior inconsistent. In order to remedy this and reduce dissonance, they would exaggerate the positives of the chosen alternative, and focus on the negatives of the not chosen alternative. In other words, they would change their attitudes to be consistent with their behavior, which results in them feeling as if the not chosen alternative is undesirable and they never wanted it to begin with.

An example of this is an experiment conducted by Jack Brehm (1956), in which he asked female participants to rate consumer products, and afterwards were offered a choice between two products to take home as a gift. Unbeknownst to them, the participants were divided into and high-dissonance group and a low-dissonance group. Specifically, this meant that the high-dissonance group had to choose between to equally desirable products, while the low-dissonance group chose between one desirable and one undesirable product. After making their decision, the participants then went back a reevaluated the products. With the low-dissonance group, their ratings remained about the same, but, in the high-dissonance group, ratings for the chosen product increased and the ratings for the not chosen product decreased, though they had originally found the two products to be equally desirable. In other words, they reduced their dissonance over picking one product (behavior) though they really wanted both (attitude) by focusing on the positives of the chosen product and on the negatives of the not chosen product, which then made their attitudes change, so that they didn’t really want the other product anyway.

This type of experience with cognitive dissonance happens to me all the time, as I’m sure it happens to many others as well. Whenever I have to make a choice between two equally wanted possibilities, I feel high anxiety and discomfort. Yet, once I finally make a decision, the choice then seems so simple, and I wonder why I ever stressed at all. This was particularly the case when deciding where to go to college. I was trying to decide between two possible colleges, each of which were equally desirable, and had their own positives. Specifically, one college was offering a full ride, was closer, and I knew people who were going there. Yet, the other college was better rated, smaller, and was closer to Austin. I wanted both, yet I could only attend one college. For a couple days I went back and forth over which one to choose, all the while experiencing a good amount of stress and anxiety. After all that deliberation, I decided on the smaller, better rated college (whoo SU!), and, shortly after my decision, couldn’t see why it had been such a hard decision to make. The choice seemed clear now, as I began to focus on all the positives of SU, and all the negatives of the now unwanted college. In short, SU became the greatest college ever, while the other college became completely undesirable. In other words, thanks to cognitive dissonance and my need to reduce it, I am completely in love with Southwestern  (most of the time).

Brehm, J.W. (1956). Post-decision changes in desirability of alternatives. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 52, 384-389.

Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

The One About My Mom, Tattoos, and Psychological Reactance

When reading through the Attitude chapter, the concept that most stuck with me was Psychological Reactance, which is the theory that, when people feel their freedom is being threatened, they react by asserting themselves and their views, and ultimately finding the threatened freedom more attractive (Brehm & Brehm, 1981). Furthermore, the perceived threat of freedom can lead to a negative attitude change, or a move to the complete opposite position of the one being promoted, if the communicator is seen as coming on too strong (Heller, Pallak, & Picek, 1873). In addition, the theory is sometimes viewed as ‘Reverse Psychology’ or the idea that, if you want someone to do something, threaten them with the idea that they aren’t allowed to do it. In other words, if you want a child to eat their vegetables, tell them they are not allowed to eat any vegetables, ever.


This concept reminded me of being a teenager, when anything your parents told you to do, say, or think was wrong, and the need to do the opposite was immense. In terms of my teenage years, the biggest things I rebelled against had to deal with tattoos and alcohol, and it wasn’t in the way most people would think. My mom loved to go out, drink, and dance, while I preferred to stay home with a book. Furthermore, she has about twelve tattoos and will probably get another one by the time you read this blog. Growing up around her, especially during my teen years, she would always offer me a sip of her alcohol drink and ask me what kind of tattoos I was going to get when I was older. Overall, she gave the impression that I was expected to love tattoos and give them as soon as possible. And since, at the time, I felt she was trying to control me, I fought against it. I rebelled by forming and stating the opinion that I hated alcohol and tattoos, and would not ever drink alcohol or get a tattoo. Like the concept Psychological Reactance discusses, I felt my freedom of choice when it came to alcohol and tattoos was being threatened, so I fought against my mom in order to reassert that freedom. Furthermore, since I felt my mom was really pushing and wanting me to get a tattoo, this lead to me having a negative attitude change, and forming the total opposite opinion of what she was aiming for.

Of course now I do have a tattoo and drink alcohol from time to time, but the decision to get a tattoo and start drinking were made in situations where I didn’t perceive me freedom of choice was being threatened and therefore could make the decision on my own. My mom is very pleased with these developments since she gave up a long time ago trying to convince me to get a tattoo, and she says she would rather me legally drink alcohol than do anything else illegally.

Brehm, S.S., & Brehm, J.W. (1981). Psychological reactance: A theory of freedom and control. New York: Academic Press.

Heller, J.F., Pallak, M.S., & Picek, J.M. (1973). The interactive effects of intent and threat on boomerang attitude change. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 26, 273-279.

Participant Observer Blog: The One About Me, IAT, and Prejudice

Back in the day, a large majority of people used to wear their prejudices with pride, at least in the United States. They would state firmly that their beliefs were fact, and that the white man was better than everyone else is every way. Specifically, prejudice is negative feelings toward a group and its members, and, nowadays, most people would rather die than be seen as having any sort of prejudices. Unfortunately, people’s fear of being seen as prejudice does not mean those thoughts and feelings no longer exist. Instead, people mask or hide their socially unacceptable thoughts, but still these thoughts do tend to come up in subtle ways. A term used to describe this phenomenon is Modern Racism, or a form of prejudice that is revealed in subtle ways when the prejudice is socially safe and acceptable and also can be rationalized (Hass, Katz, Rizzo, Bailey, & Moore, 1992). Though the term points specifically to racism, it can be easily applied to sexism or prejudice against different sexualities, etc.

Since these prejudice thoughts are less direct and outright than they used to be, measuring them accurately has become more difficult. In an attempt to solve this problem and find a way to measure these prejudices, the Implicit Associates Test (IAT) was developed (Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998). Though initially developed to measure racism, other IATs were later developed to measure prejudices against gender, sexuality, religion, and more. In terms of how it works, the Race IAT, for example, tests implicit prejudices by first instructing the participants to categorize faces, of which only the eyes and nose are shown, into either of African or European origin. To do this the participant would press ‘E’ for African origin, which was on the left side, or ‘I’ for European origin, which was on the right side. After quickly completely this task, the participant was then instructed to classify words, such as joy and agony, into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ categories. Then the different concepts were paired together for the participant to classify. For instance, first ‘good’ and ‘African’ would be paired and ‘bad’ and ‘European’ would be paired, then the reverse would take place. Specifically, what is meant by being ‘paired together’ is that both the ‘good’ words and ‘African’ faces would be classified on the same side, or by pressing the same button. How quickly the participant was able to classify these faces and words in the same direction would be influenced by how they implicitly felt towards people of African and European origin. For example, if they unconsciously connected ‘bad’ with ‘African’ and ‘good’ with ‘European’, the participant would be able to quickly categorize the faces and words when bad/African and good/European were paired together, but would have difficulty and would perhaps hesitate more when good/African and bad/European were paired together. Other IATs dealing with things such as sexuality and religion work in similar fashion.

For my first experience with the Implicit Associates Tests, I completed the Race IAT. After the test was over, I was given the result that I had ‘little to no preference between people of African or European origin’. I can’t say I was surprised, but that was probably due to the fact that the results matched by conscious beliefs. This result didn’t surprise me because, growing up, my peers and friends consisted of people from many different origins, including African and European origins. Furthermore, after ruminating on it some more, I realized I meet all the requirements under the Contact Hypothesis, which is the theory that argues direct, persistent interactions with hostile or opposing groups will diminish prejudice, but only under specific conditions (Allport, 1954). Those conditions being that the contact should take place in a situation that gives the groups equal status, personal interactions, cooperative activities, and social norms that favor intergroup contact. All these conditions were met in my schools, so it makes sense that any prejudice I might have had would be extinguished or reduced to a very small amount. It is difficult to say, because it might just be because I want it to be true, but I do believe the test is showing my true self. I can honestly say I feel no conscious prejudice towards either white or black people.

After completing my first IAT, I chose the Sexuality IAT to complete next. It worked in a similar fashion to the Race IAT, but, instead of black or white faces, it had images and words related to either heterosexuality or homosexuality. My results revealed that I have a strong preference towards gay people over straight people, and, again, I wasn’t very surprised. Though I was surprised at how strong of a preference I have towards gay people, gay rights and issues have always been important to me. And though, in terms of the Contact Hypothesis, I should not have prejudice towards either straight or gay people, I believe my investment in gay rights leaded me to form a bias against straight people, though I am myself straight. In other words, I don’t believe I am truly biased against straight people. It’s not as if I hesitate to sit next to or talk to a straight person. But I do believe my personal investment, in terms of the equal treatment for LGBT people, caused me to be biased in favor of homosexuality in the test, and, in that way, I don’t believe this test really revealed my ‘true’ attitude nor matched my conscious beliefs.

For my final test, I completed the Religion IAT, which specifically deals with possible prejudice towards Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, and Islam. I was given the results that I preferred Christianity and Buddhism equally, then Islam, and lastly, Judaism. Moreover, the differences between preferences (i.e. between Christianity/Buddhism and Islam, Islam and Judaism) were not very big or strong, but, nevertheless, did exist. Of all the results I had been given, this was the one I was truly surprised at receiving. Consciously, Judaism is the religion I am most interested in, yet this test says I prefer it the least. If anything, I believed I would prefer Christianity the least, which I admit I have a slight conscious prejudice towards. Needless to say, these results did not match my conscious beliefs. Nor do I believe they revealed my ‘true’ attitudes, instead I think they illuminated my lack of exposure to certain religions. I have had countless exposures to Christianity and have taken a class on Buddhism, but have had very little experience with Islam or Judaism. In other words, I was unfamiliar with the words associated with Islam and Judaism, and that is what caused me to hesitate when classifying them.

Overall, completing these IATs did make me think of stereotypes and prejudice differently. I often pride myself on having no prejudices, but these tests made me realize how easily and unknowingly prejudices can be formed. Since the Religion IAT is the one that bothered me the most, I decided to take it again. This time, instead of Buddhism, Hinduism was used in the test, which has some similarities with Buddhism, and I had some experience with it in my Buddhism class. I made an effort to complete the test that would reveal less prejudice, but sadly I failed. I received similar results to the first time I completed the test, only this time Islam and Judaism were equal on the scale. Though the results bother me, they make me think more highly of the IAT and believe that it perhaps does measure those unconscious, implicit prejudices we may or may not have. These test results also motivate me to gain more exposure and experience, in terms of different religions, in order to lessen my prejudice.

Allport, G.W. (1954). The nature of prejudice. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

Greenwald, A.G, McGhee, D.E., & Schwartz, J.L.K. (1998). Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: The implicit association test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 197-216.

Hass, R.G., Katz, I., Rizzo, N., Bailey, J., & Moore, L. (1992). When racial ambivalence evokes negative affect, using a disguised measure of mood. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 18, 786-797.

The One About Me, Self-Monitoring, and Why I Suck At It

One of the most consistent comments I’ve heard from my different friends over the years is that I’m always myself. When this was said to me I would smile and say thank you, but inside I was slightly confused. Of course I’m always myself, who else would I be? I didn’t understand how this characteristic of ‘being yourself’ could be true for me, but not for some people. Turns out people do vary on this characteristic, and the concept that best applies to it is Self-Monitoring.

Self-Monitoring is the tendency for people to change the way they act or present themselves in response to the environment or situation they are in (Snyder, 1987). Self-Monitoring is one of the concepts that deal with Self-Presentation, or the tactics people employ in order to influence how others perceive them (Schlenker, 2003). In terms of Self-Monitoring, people can be a low, moderate, or high Self-Monitor. Low Self-Monitors are usually very consistent with their Self-Presentation, regardless of the environment or situation. And according to the Self-Monitoring Scale (Snyder, 1974), low Self-Monitors are likely to agree with statements such as ‘I can only argue for ideas which I already believe’ and ‘I have never been good at games like charades or improvisational acting’. In other words, they are unable, or unwilling, to change anything about themselves, from behavior to opinions. On the other hand, high Self-Monitors often adapt their Self-Presentation to the needs or concerns of the situation they are in and the people they are around, due to their concern with their public image. Furthermore, they are likely to agree to statements such as ‘I would probably make a good actor’ and ‘in different situations and with different people, I often act like very different persons’. They can easily and usually convincingly alter their behavior and opinions to fit the situation. Furthermore, due to their tendency of adaptation, high Self-Monitors are usually more observant and aware of their surroundings than low Self-Monitors. Moreover, moderate Self-Monitors usually fall somewhere in between and have a combination of the characteristics from the two extremes, low and high Self-Monitors.

After taking the Snyder’s Self-Monitoring Scale (1974), in which I scored a 2 out of 18, I realized I was a low Self-Monitor, and I can’t say I’m surprised. I am a terrible actor and seem to be incapable of lying. I usually have very little awareness of my surrounding, which have lead to some funny moments for my friends. Furthermore, one of the reasons I don’t have a close relationship with my father is the fact that I can’t or won’t change my opinions to match his own. As discussed in class, I have a small close group of friends instead of a larger less close variety of friends that is more common for high Self-Monitors. I probably have a low amount of friends because I am consistently the same person regardless of the situation, which puts me at a disadvantage as I am unable to relate or get close to people who might differ from me. While for high Self-Monitors, they are able to change their Self-Presentation, which allows them to better socialize with a bigger variety of people. There are definitely some disadvantages to being a low Self-Monitor, but I can’t say I would want to change, which seems like a really low Self-Monitoring to say.

Schlenker, B.R. (2003). Self-presentation. In M.R. Leary & J.P. Tangney (Eds.), Handbook of self and identity (pp. 492-518). New York: Guilford

Snyder, M. (1974). The self-monitoring of expressive behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 30, 526-537.

Snyder, M. (1987). Public appearances private/realities: The psychology of self-monitoring. New York: Freeman.

The One About Me, Parties, and The Spotlight Effect

When looking through the topics discussed this week, there was one concept in particular that stuck with me, The Spotlight Effect. It is the reason I feel awkward in social situations and why I generally avoid big parties.

The Spotlight Effect is the tendency for people to overestimate how much others are watching and noticing them, the good and the bad (Gilovich & Savitsky, 1999). In other words, when a hypothetical person is walking down the street and almost trips, they would automatically feel as if everyone saw that minor slip-up and are laughing at them. On the flipside, that hypothetical person would also automatically expect people to pay particular notice when something good happens to them, like they answer a question right in class or have a good hair day. The truth is, people aren’t really paying that much attention to us, though we feel as if the whole world is watching.

A personal example is my history with parties, which I try to avoid most of the time. Due to The Spotlight Effect or my general paranoia, I feel almost suffocated at parties due to the belief that everyone is watching me. No matter how much I tell myself that these people are going to the party to have fun and not watch me awkwardly stand in the corner, I still feel as if everyone notices when I am standing alone. That when I almost slip because the floor is wet with beer, they are all laughing to themselves. And that when I accidently spill a drink on my shirt, the stain might as well glow in the dark because everyone is sure to notice. Of course this doesn’t hold true for where parties I consume alcohol, which seems to cancel out The Spotlight Effect. Similar to when negative things happen, I also expect people around me to pay special attention when good things are happening. Like when I feel I’m wear a particularly nice looking outfit, I expect people to be beside themselves over how cute it is.

The Spotlight Effect is a difficult thing to overcome. I’ve been aware of this concept for some years now and I still fall prey to it. Though it’s not the most urgent matter to overcome, being aware that people aren’t really paying much attention to you could help a person function more comfortably in a big crowd.

Gilovich, T., & Savitsky, K. (1999). The Spotlight effect and the illusion of transparency: Egocentric assessments of how we are seen by others. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 8(6), 165-168.

The One About My Roommate, the Missed Question, and Counterfactual Thinking

When thinking about writing this blog, I kept hitting a brick wall. With concepts like priming and attribution theories to discuss, I could think of a million little example, but nothing I felt I could expand on. I almost decided to just skip this week’s blog, until my roommate came home with a story to tell.


Last week, my roommate became sick, which is bad enough. Unfortunately for her, she also had her first test in an important class that week. She contemplated not going, but decided she was well enough to go and she didn’t want to stress about the test anymore. Walking into our apartment today, I was met with my roommate, who told me they received their graded tests today. After asking her how she did, my roommate got a sad look on her face and said she would have had a perfect score, but she had accidently skipped one of the short essay questions.

After trying to reassure her that she could bounce back from this and do better on future tests, my roommate lamented that what bothered her most was that she knew the question. That she could have easily gotten a perfect score, but for whatever reason, perhaps due to her being sick, she had glazed over that one question. She went on to say she wouldn’t be so mad at herself if she didn’t actually know the question because then she could tell herself it didn’t matter that she had skipped the question because she didn’t know it anyway. She then fumed about the different scenarios that could have gotten her a better score. Maybe if she had looked over the test one more time. Maybe if she had waited till she had felt better to take the test, she would have been more attentive. The list goes on. Sadly for my roommate, no matter how many scenarios she thinks up, she still skipped the question.

What my roommate is suffering from is Counterfactual Thinking, which is part of a bigger concept, Cognitive Heuristics. Specifically, Cognitive Heuristics are information-processing tools that are usually helpful in allowing us to quickly and efficiently think about the world around us, but can lead us astray (Gilovich, Grifin, & Kahneman, 2002; Kahneman, Slovic, & Tversky, 1982; Nisbett & Ross, 1980). There are several different heuristic tools we use, but the one I’m focusing on in this blog is Counterfactual Thinking, which is the inclination of a person to think of the different possible outcomes, that did not occur, of an event (Kahneman & Miller, 1986). Furthermore, research has shown that the alternative outcomes we come up with affect how we feel about the event (Roese, 1997; Roese & Olson, 1995). In other words, if we imagine more positive alternates, we feel disappointed or frustrated with the actual outcome, but if we imagine negative outcomes, we usually feel more relieved or satisfied with the actual outcome. Moreover, certain situations make it easier to conjure up other possible outcomes, such as situations where we are on the verge of a better or worse outcome or just below a cutoff point (Medvec & Savitsky, 1997).

So for my roommate, the fact the she was so close to a perfect score made the situation even worse and much easier to think of different outcomes. If she had made a worse score, it might have made it easier for her to let it go and just tell herself to study and focus more next time. Furthermore, her feelings of anger and disappointment are explained by the fact that she was focusing on more positive alternatives, such as answering the last question, than on negative outcomes, such as missing more than just the one question. Had she thought of all the worse alternative outcomes, she might have felt better about the grade she received.

Gilovich, T., Grifin, D., & Kahneman, D. (Eds.). (2002) Heuristics and biases: The psychology of intuitive judgment. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Kahneman, D., & Miller, D.T. (1986). Norm theory: Comparing reality to its alternatives. Psychological Review, 93, 136-153.

Kahneman, D., Slovic, P., & Tversky, A. (Eds.). (1982). Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Medvec, V.H., & Savitsky, K. (1997). When doing better means feeling worse: The effects of categorical cutoff points on counterfactual thinking and satisfaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72, 1284-1296.

Nisbett, R.E., & Ross, L. (1980). Human inferences: Strategies and shortcomings of social judgment. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Roese, N.J. (1997). Counterfactual thinking. Psychological Bulletin, 121, 133-148.
 Roese, N.J., & Olson, J.M. (Eds.). (1995). What might have been: The social psychology of counterfactual thinking. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

The One About My Friend, the Musician, and First Impressions

When I began thinking about personal experiences relating to first impressions, what immediately popped into my head had nothing to do with me and everything to do with my best friend and an unfortunately absent musician. It is an incident that made me laugh then because of how wrong of an impression my best friend got from the musician, whom I knew from a psychology class. It makes me laugh even more so know because it is a perfect example of how powerful first impressions can be, and of how concepts like belief perseverance and primacy effect play out in real life.

The primacy effect being the idea that people greatly use the information they are given early on when forming an impression of a person, and largely ignore later information, even if it is important (Asch, 1946). Furthermore, belief perseverance is the, arguably stubborn, refusal to let go of current beliefs, even if those beliefs have been negated (Anderson, Lepper, & Ross, 1980).

Back to my best friend and the no-show musician, the story goes that my best friend was trying to set up a fundraising concert on campus for one of her favorite organizations. The musician she contacted was a well known one on campus, so my friend was hoping the popular musician would bring a big crowd to the concert. Email conversations took place, and it looked like it was all going to work out. Come to the first concert meeting, the musician never shows up and later emails that they were too busy to come to the meeting. They subsequently miss every other meeting my friend holds, so my friend scratches the musicians name off the performance list and begins forming a bad impression of the busy musician. Jump to the day before the concert, my friend receives an email from the musician asking when and where they would be performing, which sends my friend over the edge. She writes a sickeningly sweet email to the musician about since they never showed up to any of the meetings, she would not be needing their services at the concert. After that exchange, my friend permanently writes the musician off as being every negative quality she can think of, and never looks back.

The next semester, the musician was in one of my classes, and I was able to learn more about them. Though I tried time and time again to change my friend's mind about the musician, she wouldn't budge. No matter how many good things I had to say about the musician, my friend would find something bad to say. I would talk about how smart the musician was in class, and my friend would just roll her eyes.

This story illustrates the concepts primacy effects and belief perseverance. That is, my friend based her impression of the musician on the first few bits of information she received about the musician, which was they could be somewhat unreliable and presumptuous, and largely ignored any later information she learned (primacy effect). Furthermore, she refused to change her belief that the musician was a rude person even when she was given information about the musician being a nice and smart person (belief perseverance).

Sadly, the musician no longer goes to our university, so my friend will never have the chance to personally get to know the musician better and maybe change her opinion on them. Although, I doubt she would take the opportunity even if it was available.

Anderson, C. A., Lepper, M. R, & Ross, L. (1980). The perseverance of social theories: The role of explanation in the persistence of discredited information. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39, 1037-1049.

Asch, S.E. (1946). Forming impressions of personality. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 41(3), 258-290.

Dawn of the Dead

Welcome!

This may be the start of something great...