1. What are traits, and how is personality understood from a trait perspective? How can we decide how many traits there are? How may they be hierarchically organized?
Traits are behavioral dispositions that endure over time and across situations. The trait approach to personality provides a method for assessing the extent to which individuals differ in personality dispositions, such as sociability, cheerfulness, and aggressiveness. Gordon Allport and Henry Odbert found around 18,000 dictionary words that could be used as personality traits. Raymond Cattell narrowed 16 basic dimensions of personality. Hans Eysenck proposed a hierarchical model of personality that included five traits within extraversion. Extraversion is a superordinate trait made up of five traits: sociability, dominance, assertiveness, activity, and liveliness. Each of these subordinate traits is made up of habitual and specific responses.
2. Discuss five-factor theory of personality, What are the five factors, and what does each refer to? What are the advantages and limitations of this approach?
The five-factor theory identifies five basic personality traits. Conscientiousness is how determined by how careful and organized one is. Extraversion is how social and outgoing someone is. Agreeableness is how cooperative and trustful one is. Neuroticism is how stable and dramatic someone is. Openness to Experience is how adaptive and methodical someone is. The five-factor theory is known to be reliable across cultures and age groups despite whether people rate themselves or are rated by others. The theory is limited because the terms are descriptive rather than explanatory and limits the vast number of traits to five dimensions; however, it does provide a common descriptive framework.
3. Discuss the degree to which personality is consistent from one social situation to another. What conditions make it more consistent or less consistent? How may personality also offer affect the situation?
Walter Mischel was the psychologist who first proposed that behaviors were determined more by situations rather than personalities, a theory called situationism. Personality holds that it is relatively stable across situations and circumstances. The consistency, or extent to which a trait predicts behavior, depends on the centrality of the trait, the aggregation of behaviors over time, and the type of trait being evaluated. People are more consistent in their central traits than in their secondary traits. If behaviors are averaged across many situations, personality traits are more predictive of behavior. Some traits, like honesty, will more likely be consistent across situations, whereas shyness may vary depending on the situation. A strong situation tends to discourage displays of personality, whereas a weak situation tends to let people behave more freely.
4. Discus the evidence for genetic influences on personality. How do researchers investigate this issue?
Researchers can investigate the genetic influence on any psychological issue by using identical, monozygotic, twins. Evidence gathered from James Loehlin and Robert Nichols, suggest that nearly all personality traits have a genetic component. In a study that examined the similarities in personality among over 800 pairs of twins, it was concluded that across a wide variety of traits, identical twins proved much more similar than fraternal twins. Genetic influence accounts for approximately half of the variance. Genes in DNA predispose certain personality traits associated with behavioral tendencies. It has been found that genes can be linked with some specificity to personality traits. For instance, a gene that regulates one particular dopamine receptor has been associated with novelty seeking.
5. What is self-esteem? How is it related to others' views of us? How is it related to one's success in life?
Self-esteem is the evaluative aspect of the self-concept, indicating people' emotional response as the contemplate various characteristics about themselves. It is assumed that people's self-esteem is based on how they believe others perceive them. According to reflected appraisal, people internalize the values and beliefs expressed by important people in their lives, adopting them as their own. Studies have found that although people with high self-esteem reported being much happier, self-esteem is weakly related to objective life outcomes. There are many people who have been picked on with a higher IQ that go on to be successful.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Ch. 13 Topics
1. Psychodynamic theories of personality.
Psychodynamic theory of personality, developed by Sigmund Freud, consists of unconscious forces that influence behavior. Freud referred to these forces as instincts, which usually led to behavior that promoted survival and pleasure.
2. Positive psychology.
Started by Martin Seligman, positive psychology is the study of such qualities as faith, values creativity, courage, and hope, to determine their effects on people. Correlations have been found with these positive qualities and success and well-being of not only individual people, but also countries.
3. Idiographic approach to personality as distinguished from a nomothetic approach.
Idiographic approaches are the personalities characterized by individual lives and various personal characteristics. Nomothetic approaches focus more on the common types of labeled personalities among which individuals vary.
4. Projective and objective measures of personality.
Projective measures use meaningless, or ambiguous stimulus items to elicit "unconscious conflicts and wishes" in order to determine hidden aspects of personality. The Rorschach inkblot test is a projective measure. The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) is another projective measure that reliably predicts how interpersonally dependent people are.
Objective measures focus only on what raters believe or observe. the objective tests, such as the NEO Personality Inventory, require people to make subjective judgments. Self-reports can be affected by desired to avoid looking bad and by biases in self-perception.
5. Temperament.
Temperaments are general tendencies to feel or act in certain ways. Temperaments represent the innate biological structures of personality, caused by gene influence. Temperaments are best measured in infants, because personality differences very early in life likely indicate the actions of biological mechanisms before life experiences may alter them.
Psychodynamic theory of personality, developed by Sigmund Freud, consists of unconscious forces that influence behavior. Freud referred to these forces as instincts, which usually led to behavior that promoted survival and pleasure.
2. Positive psychology.
Started by Martin Seligman, positive psychology is the study of such qualities as faith, values creativity, courage, and hope, to determine their effects on people. Correlations have been found with these positive qualities and success and well-being of not only individual people, but also countries.
3. Idiographic approach to personality as distinguished from a nomothetic approach.
Idiographic approaches are the personalities characterized by individual lives and various personal characteristics. Nomothetic approaches focus more on the common types of labeled personalities among which individuals vary.
4. Projective and objective measures of personality.
Projective measures use meaningless, or ambiguous stimulus items to elicit "unconscious conflicts and wishes" in order to determine hidden aspects of personality. The Rorschach inkblot test is a projective measure. The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) is another projective measure that reliably predicts how interpersonally dependent people are.
Objective measures focus only on what raters believe or observe. the objective tests, such as the NEO Personality Inventory, require people to make subjective judgments. Self-reports can be affected by desired to avoid looking bad and by biases in self-perception.
5. Temperament.
Temperaments are general tendencies to feel or act in certain ways. Temperaments represent the innate biological structures of personality, caused by gene influence. Temperaments are best measured in infants, because personality differences very early in life likely indicate the actions of biological mechanisms before life experiences may alter them.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Ch. 12 Topics
1. The conditions that make attitudes predictive of behavior.
The more specific the attitude toward something, the more predictive it is, such as liking a specific NFL team as opposed to football in general. Attitudes formed through direct experience also tend to predict behavior better. This condition explains why parenting a second child might be influenced, and therefore more predictable, by the first.
2. The difference between implicit and explicit attitudes.
Explicit attitudes are those you know about and can report to other people, such as stating things you like. Implicit attitudes are those that influence our feelings and behaviors at an unconscious level, such as confidence at something you have practiced.
3. The concept of cognitive dissonance.
Cognitive dissonance is when there is a contradiction between either two attitudes or an attitude and a behavior. When someone knows something is wrong but still does it, is an example of this concept. People will often feel anxiety and tension from this contradiction and will usually try to rationalize or trivialize the discrepancy.
4. Personal attributions and their implications.
Personal attributions, also known as internal or dispositional attributions, are explanations that refer to things within people. It refers to internal characteristics such as traits, abilities, moods, efforts, etc. to explain an event or behavior.
5. Jigsaw classroom.
With the jigsaw classroom, interaction between not only individuals, but also groups occur. When a group is assigned a collective project upon a general topic, areas of this topic will be assigned to a specific person of a group like a job. The experts of the same job in all groups will then get together and collaborate and then return to their groups to relay the information. Thus the cooperation is twofold and the material is better learned.
The more specific the attitude toward something, the more predictive it is, such as liking a specific NFL team as opposed to football in general. Attitudes formed through direct experience also tend to predict behavior better. This condition explains why parenting a second child might be influenced, and therefore more predictable, by the first.
2. The difference between implicit and explicit attitudes.
Explicit attitudes are those you know about and can report to other people, such as stating things you like. Implicit attitudes are those that influence our feelings and behaviors at an unconscious level, such as confidence at something you have practiced.
3. The concept of cognitive dissonance.
Cognitive dissonance is when there is a contradiction between either two attitudes or an attitude and a behavior. When someone knows something is wrong but still does it, is an example of this concept. People will often feel anxiety and tension from this contradiction and will usually try to rationalize or trivialize the discrepancy.
4. Personal attributions and their implications.
Personal attributions, also known as internal or dispositional attributions, are explanations that refer to things within people. It refers to internal characteristics such as traits, abilities, moods, efforts, etc. to explain an event or behavior.
5. Jigsaw classroom.
With the jigsaw classroom, interaction between not only individuals, but also groups occur. When a group is assigned a collective project upon a general topic, areas of this topic will be assigned to a specific person of a group like a job. The experts of the same job in all groups will then get together and collaborate and then return to their groups to relay the information. Thus the cooperation is twofold and the material is better learned.
Ch. 12 Paragraphs
1. What are attitudes and where do they come from? Discuss the following sources of attitudes:
2. How can attitudes be changed? Consider discrepancies between attitudes and behavior, as well as persuasion.
Research gathered in dissonance studies have shown that one way to get people to change their attitudes is to change their behavior. By justifying effort, it is shown that it is harder to absolve oneself from something that initially caused great dissonance therefore inflating importance and influencing attitude. In persuasion, a message is transmitted in order to change attitude. Further studies of persuasion have also found that more memorable and simplistic messages are often the most persuasive.
3. What are attributions, in general? How do attributions affect our impressions of others and of ourselves? Are our attributions accurate?
Attributions are people's explanations for events or actions. People make attributions to satisfy our basic need for order and predictability. The just world hypothesis is when we make attributions about a victim of a senseless crime. There are two main types of attributions, personal and situational. Personal attributions are explanations that refer to things within people, such as ability, mood, etc. Situational attributions are external factors, such as weather, accidents, other people, etc. Our explanations of other peoples' behavior overemphasizes their personality traits and underestimates the importance of the situation; this is called the fundamental attribution error. Because of the correspondence bias, people expect others' behaviors to correspond with their own beliefs and personalities.
4. What are stereotypes? How may they be self-fulfilling? How do they affect our behavior?
Stereotypes are cognitive schemas that help us organize information about people on the basis of their membership in certain groups. Initially untrue stereotypes can become true through self-fulfilling prophecy, in which people come to behave in ways that confirm their own or others' expectations. Negative stereotypes can lead to prejudice and discrimination, whereas positive stereotypes may lead to pleasantness.
5. How can stereotypes and the associated prejudices be changed? what evidence do we have for effectiveness of various methods?
When people are prejudice, they have negative judgments about people based on their stereotypes. Shared subordinate goals reduce hostility between groups, because they require cooperation. Muzafer Sherif did a study where he took two groups of all white, 5th-grade boys to a camp. After the two groups had spent time getting to know the members within their respective groups, they then competed against each other in high-stakes athletics. This caused prejudice and mistreatment between the groups. However, after the two groups were given subordinate goals, they became friends.
- Familiarity and the mere exposure effect.
- Classical conditioning
- Operant Conditioning
- Socialization
2. How can attitudes be changed? Consider discrepancies between attitudes and behavior, as well as persuasion.
Research gathered in dissonance studies have shown that one way to get people to change their attitudes is to change their behavior. By justifying effort, it is shown that it is harder to absolve oneself from something that initially caused great dissonance therefore inflating importance and influencing attitude. In persuasion, a message is transmitted in order to change attitude. Further studies of persuasion have also found that more memorable and simplistic messages are often the most persuasive.
3. What are attributions, in general? How do attributions affect our impressions of others and of ourselves? Are our attributions accurate?
Attributions are people's explanations for events or actions. People make attributions to satisfy our basic need for order and predictability. The just world hypothesis is when we make attributions about a victim of a senseless crime. There are two main types of attributions, personal and situational. Personal attributions are explanations that refer to things within people, such as ability, mood, etc. Situational attributions are external factors, such as weather, accidents, other people, etc. Our explanations of other peoples' behavior overemphasizes their personality traits and underestimates the importance of the situation; this is called the fundamental attribution error. Because of the correspondence bias, people expect others' behaviors to correspond with their own beliefs and personalities.
4. What are stereotypes? How may they be self-fulfilling? How do they affect our behavior?
Stereotypes are cognitive schemas that help us organize information about people on the basis of their membership in certain groups. Initially untrue stereotypes can become true through self-fulfilling prophecy, in which people come to behave in ways that confirm their own or others' expectations. Negative stereotypes can lead to prejudice and discrimination, whereas positive stereotypes may lead to pleasantness.
5. How can stereotypes and the associated prejudices be changed? what evidence do we have for effectiveness of various methods?
When people are prejudice, they have negative judgments about people based on their stereotypes. Shared subordinate goals reduce hostility between groups, because they require cooperation. Muzafer Sherif did a study where he took two groups of all white, 5th-grade boys to a camp. After the two groups had spent time getting to know the members within their respective groups, they then competed against each other in high-stakes athletics. This caused prejudice and mistreatment between the groups. However, after the two groups were given subordinate goals, they became friends.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Emotion and Decision Making
1. How important is decision making in everyday life? What body of research has pointed to an important role for emotions in these decisions? According to the somatic-marker hypothesis, how are emotions involved in decision making?
Decision making occurs on a regular, day-to-day basis and precedes many of life's most important events. Not only do people use expected utility upon explicit knowledge of outcomes, but neuroscientists have also concluded that emotion plays a critical role in biasing decision making. According to the somatic-marker hypothesis, emotion biases decision making toward choices that maximize reward and minimize punishment.
2. What are the effects on decision making of damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC)? What intellectual and problem-solving abilities do such patients have? What emotional impairments do they have? How are these impairments related to the somatic-marker hypothesis?
Patients with damage to the vmPFC, located above the eye sockets, often engaged in activities that were detrimental to their well-being and appeared unable to learn from their previous mistakes due to their repetition of these patterns. In contrast, their intellects and problem-solving abilities were normal. However, their ability to react to emotional situations was impaired, meaning that damage to the vmPFC affected their ability to use emotions to aid in their decision making. This supported the somatic-marker hypothesis in that emotions play a role in decision making, especially where the outcome is uncertain.
3. What is the Iowa Gambling Task? How do intact people differ from those with vmPFC damage on this task? How are skin conductance responses (SCRs) different for these two groups of participants? How are these patterns of response on the task different for patients with damage to the amygdala?
The Iowa Gambling Task used four decks of cards (two advantageous and two disadvantageous) and had people choose from all four decks. The two advantageous decks, which provided low reward and low punishment would eventually lead to a net gain. the two disadvantageous decks provided high reward and punishment and would lead to a net loss. "Normal individuals" after sampling all four decks equally, typically shifted their choices to the advantageous deck. Subjects with vmPFC continued to choose from the disadvantageous deck. Normal subjects also elicited higher SCRs before choosing from the disadvantageous decks whereas the subjects with vmPFC showed very little SCRs. Patients with damage to the amygdala showed similar results as those with vmPFC damage however those with amygdala damage had impaired SCRs to receiving rewards and punishments and registering the impact.
4. In what two ways may our bodily states affect our decision making? What brain areas are involved in these effects? What are "gut feelings?"
After our bodies have been feed palatable food to satiety, our responses to specific primary reinforcers are reduced by manipulations that diminished their value. This way, vmPFC neurons respond to conditioned stimuli that predict the delivery of primary reinforcers. The insular cortex, as well as the vmPFC and amygdala are involved in predicting reward and decision making. Gut feelings come from the mapping of visceral states within the insular cortex, which cause an unconscious reinforcement that is delivered in an unpredictable way.
5. Do neurons in the various brain areas mentioned above respond in ways that are consistent with the somatic-marker hypothesis?
The mesolimbic dopamine system is an area that contributes to decision making and reward processing. The activity of single neurons within the mesolimbic dopamine system is increased by primary reinforcers. These neurons also respond to stimuli that predict and the neurons shift over time. This is consistent with the role of the mesolimbic dopamine system proposed by the somatic-marker hypothesis.
6. How may the processes discussed in this article be involved in moral decisions? How may they be important in drug abuse?
Studies have found that there is a greater activation of the vmPFC when the moral decision involves negative consequence for another person. Moral decisions engage emotions, especially when one is required to consider another's well-being. Drug addiction has been found to elicit the same impairments as people with vmPFC damage, which suggests that drug addiction is promoted in part by the dysfunction of the vmPFC which would normally steer people away from harmful or negative consequences.
7. How does the somatic-marker hypothesis provide a bridge linking complex human abilities with fundamental motivations and physiological processes?
The somatic-marker hypothesis is a good base for understanding the connection with the mesolimbic dopamine system and insular cortex and how they work together to facilitate decision making through gut feelings and unconscious biasing of behavior. Because of this we can use the somatic-marker hypothesis to compare the most complex human abilities to motivational and homeostatic processes.
Decision making occurs on a regular, day-to-day basis and precedes many of life's most important events. Not only do people use expected utility upon explicit knowledge of outcomes, but neuroscientists have also concluded that emotion plays a critical role in biasing decision making. According to the somatic-marker hypothesis, emotion biases decision making toward choices that maximize reward and minimize punishment.
2. What are the effects on decision making of damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC)? What intellectual and problem-solving abilities do such patients have? What emotional impairments do they have? How are these impairments related to the somatic-marker hypothesis?
Patients with damage to the vmPFC, located above the eye sockets, often engaged in activities that were detrimental to their well-being and appeared unable to learn from their previous mistakes due to their repetition of these patterns. In contrast, their intellects and problem-solving abilities were normal. However, their ability to react to emotional situations was impaired, meaning that damage to the vmPFC affected their ability to use emotions to aid in their decision making. This supported the somatic-marker hypothesis in that emotions play a role in decision making, especially where the outcome is uncertain.
3. What is the Iowa Gambling Task? How do intact people differ from those with vmPFC damage on this task? How are skin conductance responses (SCRs) different for these two groups of participants? How are these patterns of response on the task different for patients with damage to the amygdala?
The Iowa Gambling Task used four decks of cards (two advantageous and two disadvantageous) and had people choose from all four decks. The two advantageous decks, which provided low reward and low punishment would eventually lead to a net gain. the two disadvantageous decks provided high reward and punishment and would lead to a net loss. "Normal individuals" after sampling all four decks equally, typically shifted their choices to the advantageous deck. Subjects with vmPFC continued to choose from the disadvantageous deck. Normal subjects also elicited higher SCRs before choosing from the disadvantageous decks whereas the subjects with vmPFC showed very little SCRs. Patients with damage to the amygdala showed similar results as those with vmPFC damage however those with amygdala damage had impaired SCRs to receiving rewards and punishments and registering the impact.
4. In what two ways may our bodily states affect our decision making? What brain areas are involved in these effects? What are "gut feelings?"
After our bodies have been feed palatable food to satiety, our responses to specific primary reinforcers are reduced by manipulations that diminished their value. This way, vmPFC neurons respond to conditioned stimuli that predict the delivery of primary reinforcers. The insular cortex, as well as the vmPFC and amygdala are involved in predicting reward and decision making. Gut feelings come from the mapping of visceral states within the insular cortex, which cause an unconscious reinforcement that is delivered in an unpredictable way.
5. Do neurons in the various brain areas mentioned above respond in ways that are consistent with the somatic-marker hypothesis?
The mesolimbic dopamine system is an area that contributes to decision making and reward processing. The activity of single neurons within the mesolimbic dopamine system is increased by primary reinforcers. These neurons also respond to stimuli that predict and the neurons shift over time. This is consistent with the role of the mesolimbic dopamine system proposed by the somatic-marker hypothesis.
6. How may the processes discussed in this article be involved in moral decisions? How may they be important in drug abuse?
Studies have found that there is a greater activation of the vmPFC when the moral decision involves negative consequence for another person. Moral decisions engage emotions, especially when one is required to consider another's well-being. Drug addiction has been found to elicit the same impairments as people with vmPFC damage, which suggests that drug addiction is promoted in part by the dysfunction of the vmPFC which would normally steer people away from harmful or negative consequences.
7. How does the somatic-marker hypothesis provide a bridge linking complex human abilities with fundamental motivations and physiological processes?
The somatic-marker hypothesis is a good base for understanding the connection with the mesolimbic dopamine system and insular cortex and how they work together to facilitate decision making through gut feelings and unconscious biasing of behavior. Because of this we can use the somatic-marker hypothesis to compare the most complex human abilities to motivational and homeostatic processes.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Ch. 9 Paragraphs
1. Discuss the characteristics of motivation. How are motives related to needs, arousal, drives, homeostasis, and incentives?
Motivation is the area of psychological science concerned with the factors that energize, or stimulate, behavior. Maslow's hierarchy of needs categorizes needs from those most essential to sustain life, which we are the most motivated to fulfill, to humanistic psychological needs that give someone fulfillment and happiness. Needs create arousal, which is our physiological activation, and drives, which encourage behavior that satisfies needs. Basic biological and animal drives like hunger and thirst help maintain homeostasis, the equilibrium of the body. Incentives are external objects or goals, rather than internal drives, that motivate behaviors.
2. Discuss intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and how the latter can replace the former.
Extrinsic motivation are the external goals an activity is directed toward, such as working to earn a paycheck or running for a charity. Intrinsic motivation refers to the pleasure associated with an activity, such as gratification or the feeling of self-fulfillment from volunteering, or listening to music. People have a natural exploratory drive and creativity which promotes learning, solving problems, and art without reward. studies show that rewarding intrinsically motivated behaviors undermined intrinsic motivation and reduced the amount of time spent doing the intrinsic activity because of their developed expectation of a reward.
3. Discuss at least two major adaptive roles of emotions.
Emotions are adaptive because they prepare and guide behaviors. Emotional expressions change to exhibit how we reacts to environmental stimuli, and so that we can accurately perceive others' behavior. Negative and positive experiences guide behavior that will increase the probability of survival and reproduction. Expressions and moods give us information about what other people are feeling because we are social animals.
4. Discuss the major types of emotion that people feel and how these types are related to each other.
Primary emotions are evolutionarily adaptive, shared across cultures, and associated with specific biological and physical states. They include anger, fear, sadness, disgust, and happiness. Secondary emotions are blends of primary emotions and include remorse, guilt, submission, and anticipation. In the circumplex model emotions are mapped according to their valence (negative or positive) and activation (level of arousal).
5. Discuss the role in emotion of the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex.
The amygdala processes the emotional significance of stimuli and generates immediate emotional and behavioral responses. Because of the amygdala, people might only jump from the sight of a spider, but will run at full speed from an activated grenade. Sensory information that is passed through the thalamus will either go directly to the amygdala quickly for priority processing, or to the sensory cortex to be further scrutinized before going to the amygdala.
The right and left frontal lobes are affected by different emotions and it is believed that the variable amount of activation on either side of the prefrontal cortex is associated with specific emotional states in what is known as cerebral asymmetry. The right prefrontal cortex is more active with negative emotions and the left more so with positive emotions. It has also been theorized that people who are dominant in one hemisphere can bias emotion.
Motivation is the area of psychological science concerned with the factors that energize, or stimulate, behavior. Maslow's hierarchy of needs categorizes needs from those most essential to sustain life, which we are the most motivated to fulfill, to humanistic psychological needs that give someone fulfillment and happiness. Needs create arousal, which is our physiological activation, and drives, which encourage behavior that satisfies needs. Basic biological and animal drives like hunger and thirst help maintain homeostasis, the equilibrium of the body. Incentives are external objects or goals, rather than internal drives, that motivate behaviors.
2. Discuss intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and how the latter can replace the former.
Extrinsic motivation are the external goals an activity is directed toward, such as working to earn a paycheck or running for a charity. Intrinsic motivation refers to the pleasure associated with an activity, such as gratification or the feeling of self-fulfillment from volunteering, or listening to music. People have a natural exploratory drive and creativity which promotes learning, solving problems, and art without reward. studies show that rewarding intrinsically motivated behaviors undermined intrinsic motivation and reduced the amount of time spent doing the intrinsic activity because of their developed expectation of a reward.
3. Discuss at least two major adaptive roles of emotions.
Emotions are adaptive because they prepare and guide behaviors. Emotional expressions change to exhibit how we reacts to environmental stimuli, and so that we can accurately perceive others' behavior. Negative and positive experiences guide behavior that will increase the probability of survival and reproduction. Expressions and moods give us information about what other people are feeling because we are social animals.
4. Discuss the major types of emotion that people feel and how these types are related to each other.
Primary emotions are evolutionarily adaptive, shared across cultures, and associated with specific biological and physical states. They include anger, fear, sadness, disgust, and happiness. Secondary emotions are blends of primary emotions and include remorse, guilt, submission, and anticipation. In the circumplex model emotions are mapped according to their valence (negative or positive) and activation (level of arousal).
5. Discuss the role in emotion of the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex.
The amygdala processes the emotional significance of stimuli and generates immediate emotional and behavioral responses. Because of the amygdala, people might only jump from the sight of a spider, but will run at full speed from an activated grenade. Sensory information that is passed through the thalamus will either go directly to the amygdala quickly for priority processing, or to the sensory cortex to be further scrutinized before going to the amygdala.
The right and left frontal lobes are affected by different emotions and it is believed that the variable amount of activation on either side of the prefrontal cortex is associated with specific emotional states in what is known as cerebral asymmetry. The right prefrontal cortex is more active with negative emotions and the left more so with positive emotions. It has also been theorized that people who are dominant in one hemisphere can bias emotion.
Ch. 9 Topics
1. Negative feedback in motivation.
In the brain, the hypothalamus regulates the body in order to create a state of homeostasis. When a person is cold their brain will send signals to the skeletal muscles to shiver in an attempt to warm the body and the person will be motivated to put on a sweater.
2. Evidence for an optimal level of arousal.
According to the Yerkes-Dodson law, people operate best with some arousal. People are motivated to seek an optimal level of arousal which is demonstrated by a parabola (inverted U). Too little arousal causes us to become bored and too much arousal can lead to anxiety.
3. How can we set goals that we are able to attain?
Good goals are those that are challenging, because they encourage effort, persistence, and concentration. Being specific when making your goals also helps. Knowing exactly what is desired to achieve may help breaking large goals into smaller steps that help build up toward reaching a goal.
4. How and why flavor variety motivates eating.
By having a variety of flavors and larger quantities of these varieties cause rats and humans to eat more, which typically leads to obesity. Because of sensory-specific satiety, animals will stop eating quickly when they have just one type of food to eat. The part of the frontal lobe that assesses reward value of food increases activity when new foods are presented.
5. The hormones that affect sexual motivation.
Females and males have all the sexual hormones. Males have a higher level of androgen and females have more estrogen and progesterone. Testosterone is an androgen that drives sexual behavior. Oxytocin is another important hormone that is released during sexual arousal and orgasm, and is believed to promote feelings of love and attachment between partners.
In the brain, the hypothalamus regulates the body in order to create a state of homeostasis. When a person is cold their brain will send signals to the skeletal muscles to shiver in an attempt to warm the body and the person will be motivated to put on a sweater.
2. Evidence for an optimal level of arousal.
According to the Yerkes-Dodson law, people operate best with some arousal. People are motivated to seek an optimal level of arousal which is demonstrated by a parabola (inverted U). Too little arousal causes us to become bored and too much arousal can lead to anxiety.
3. How can we set goals that we are able to attain?
Good goals are those that are challenging, because they encourage effort, persistence, and concentration. Being specific when making your goals also helps. Knowing exactly what is desired to achieve may help breaking large goals into smaller steps that help build up toward reaching a goal.
4. How and why flavor variety motivates eating.
By having a variety of flavors and larger quantities of these varieties cause rats and humans to eat more, which typically leads to obesity. Because of sensory-specific satiety, animals will stop eating quickly when they have just one type of food to eat. The part of the frontal lobe that assesses reward value of food increases activity when new foods are presented.
5. The hormones that affect sexual motivation.
Females and males have all the sexual hormones. Males have a higher level of androgen and females have more estrogen and progesterone. Testosterone is an androgen that drives sexual behavior. Oxytocin is another important hormone that is released during sexual arousal and orgasm, and is believed to promote feelings of love and attachment between partners.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Cues and Heuristics Article
1. What are heuristics? What three classical examples of heuristics do the authors mention? What common theme may underlie many heuristics?
Heuristics are mental shortcuts or thinking aids. Tversky and Kahneman first identified three canonical heuristics; availability, representativeness, and anchoring and adjustment. Findings in the various fields from social persuasion through metacognition suggest the common themes of how familiarity, context, experience, and evaluability can make cues easy to access.
2. How may effort be reduced in common heuristics? What is the main question that the authors are trying to address in this article? How does this question relate to the availability heuristic?
Effort my be reduced by using heuristics such as considering fewer alternatives, identifying only brand names, and using information that is easier to access. The article is about finding ways in which information can be accessed the easiest. Availability integrates the common heuristics which reduce effort in finding cues.
3. What are cues, and what are their main parts?
Cues are pieces of relevant information, that are easy to access when making decisions. Cues have two separate parts: a type and value. The type involves brand names and other labels. The value considers what it is made up of and how efficient it is.
4. The authors discuss two ways that cues can be acquired, and also how these cues can be evaluated. What are the possible ways that cue acquisition can occur? How can cue acquisition and cue evaluation be made easier?
Cue acquisition can occur by cue perception and cue production. In cue perception, people use task environments and perceive only information that they have already accumulated. Cue production is when people retrieve previously seen cues from memory or assess new cues. Cue evaluation is how people use cues to make a judgment or decision by evaluating the importance of cue types and values. Cue evaluation and acquisition can be made easier if they are more common across many alternatives.
5. How can perception of cue types be made easier? What is phonetic fluency, and how might it work? If people are deciding which stocks to buy, does it matter if the name of a company is easy or hard to pronounce? Does the font in which the cue value is printed matter when one judges what the quality of a product is? Do backgrounds of Web sites affect how easily we can perceive cues for a decision?
The perception of cue types can be made easier by phonetic fluency and conceptual priming. Phonetic fluency is the sound or flow of words. When choosing from foods from a menu of a foreign language, people are likely to pick the one that sounds the most pleasant. When people are buying stocks they weighed those with easier-to-pronounce names heavier. Because of priming, people will consider web sites that have backgrounds that have images to associate with different cues and font that is easier to read.
6. Sometimes the cues are not present to be perceived but rather have to be remembered by us (cue production). Might positive audience responses make cues easier to remember? Are cues that are used repeatedly easier to remember? Will they then have a greater effect on our decisions than other cues might? Do contexts affect how easily we remember different cues?
Repeated studies have shown that there is an association between "audience response" and "message quality." If an audience responds enthusiastically, it's usually because the speech was well-phrased with convincing messages. The repeated use of a cue can increase how easily it is retrieved. In context, psychological distance makes higher-level information easier to access.
7. Are some values of cues easier to remember than others are? If so why?
Cue values can be more accessible during cue production if they stem from natural assessments, or things seen on a regular basis. Because of attribute substitution, easy cues in place of hard, cues are easier to reach the more they've been used.
8. What makes different cues easy to evaluate? How might we simplify information that we are using to evaluate different choices?
Different cues are easy to evaluate because you're only comparing two objects without using numerical values by just remembering which one had the better of which qualities. When comparing two cars, instead of remembering the numeric values and different units of things like mpg, hp, age, engine size, etc. just know if one was better, worse, or equal.
9. Why is ease of access to information so important for decision making and judgment?
Heuristics that use cue types are more common than those using cue values. The ease and efficiency of information access is important because it requires the least amount of effort of people and can allow for decisions and judgments to be made faster and still attain the most desirable outcome. It also allows us to reach a decision without having to consider and access every characteristic and attribute of every alternative, because that would make ordering a meal from a menu take days if not longer, and our brains would overload.
Heuristics are mental shortcuts or thinking aids. Tversky and Kahneman first identified three canonical heuristics; availability, representativeness, and anchoring and adjustment. Findings in the various fields from social persuasion through metacognition suggest the common themes of how familiarity, context, experience, and evaluability can make cues easy to access.
2. How may effort be reduced in common heuristics? What is the main question that the authors are trying to address in this article? How does this question relate to the availability heuristic?
Effort my be reduced by using heuristics such as considering fewer alternatives, identifying only brand names, and using information that is easier to access. The article is about finding ways in which information can be accessed the easiest. Availability integrates the common heuristics which reduce effort in finding cues.
3. What are cues, and what are their main parts?
Cues are pieces of relevant information, that are easy to access when making decisions. Cues have two separate parts: a type and value. The type involves brand names and other labels. The value considers what it is made up of and how efficient it is.
4. The authors discuss two ways that cues can be acquired, and also how these cues can be evaluated. What are the possible ways that cue acquisition can occur? How can cue acquisition and cue evaluation be made easier?
Cue acquisition can occur by cue perception and cue production. In cue perception, people use task environments and perceive only information that they have already accumulated. Cue production is when people retrieve previously seen cues from memory or assess new cues. Cue evaluation is how people use cues to make a judgment or decision by evaluating the importance of cue types and values. Cue evaluation and acquisition can be made easier if they are more common across many alternatives.
5. How can perception of cue types be made easier? What is phonetic fluency, and how might it work? If people are deciding which stocks to buy, does it matter if the name of a company is easy or hard to pronounce? Does the font in which the cue value is printed matter when one judges what the quality of a product is? Do backgrounds of Web sites affect how easily we can perceive cues for a decision?
The perception of cue types can be made easier by phonetic fluency and conceptual priming. Phonetic fluency is the sound or flow of words. When choosing from foods from a menu of a foreign language, people are likely to pick the one that sounds the most pleasant. When people are buying stocks they weighed those with easier-to-pronounce names heavier. Because of priming, people will consider web sites that have backgrounds that have images to associate with different cues and font that is easier to read.
6. Sometimes the cues are not present to be perceived but rather have to be remembered by us (cue production). Might positive audience responses make cues easier to remember? Are cues that are used repeatedly easier to remember? Will they then have a greater effect on our decisions than other cues might? Do contexts affect how easily we remember different cues?
Repeated studies have shown that there is an association between "audience response" and "message quality." If an audience responds enthusiastically, it's usually because the speech was well-phrased with convincing messages. The repeated use of a cue can increase how easily it is retrieved. In context, psychological distance makes higher-level information easier to access.
7. Are some values of cues easier to remember than others are? If so why?
Cue values can be more accessible during cue production if they stem from natural assessments, or things seen on a regular basis. Because of attribute substitution, easy cues in place of hard, cues are easier to reach the more they've been used.
8. What makes different cues easy to evaluate? How might we simplify information that we are using to evaluate different choices?
Different cues are easy to evaluate because you're only comparing two objects without using numerical values by just remembering which one had the better of which qualities. When comparing two cars, instead of remembering the numeric values and different units of things like mpg, hp, age, engine size, etc. just know if one was better, worse, or equal.
9. Why is ease of access to information so important for decision making and judgment?
Heuristics that use cue types are more common than those using cue values. The ease and efficiency of information access is important because it requires the least amount of effort of people and can allow for decisions and judgments to be made faster and still attain the most desirable outcome. It also allows us to reach a decision without having to consider and access every characteristic and attribute of every alternative, because that would make ordering a meal from a menu take days if not longer, and our brains would overload.
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