within participants’ natural, everyday environments,

This results in the perception that “they” really differ from us, and “they” are all alike.

people will often exaggerate the differences between their in-group and the outgroup

outgroup disliking stems from this in-group liking

allocating fewer resources to disliked outgroups

hat automatic or unconscious hesitation (a result of having mixed evaluations about the outgroup) will show up in the test.

relatively automatic, that is, unintended, immediate, and irresistible.

automatic, ambiguous, and ambivalent,

real in their consequences.

Still, these biases exist in people; they’re just less in view than before.

high RWA and high SDO predicts joining hate groups that openly endorse aggression against minority groups, immigrants, homosexuals, and believers in non-dominant religions

group unity

values or beliefs that the person high in RWA disagrees with, thus “threatening” the collective values of his or her group.

“threatens” one’s economic resources

respect for obedience and authority

world is tough and competitive with only a limited number of resources.

while the second group tends to score lower

while the second group tends to score lower.

police, prosecutors, business)

work ethic—that hard work always pays off and leisure is a waste of time.

disrupts the social hierarchy the person high in SDO believes in

outgroup moved into his or her neighborhood.

preferred arrangement

some groups are inherently better than others, and because of this, there is no such thing as group “equality.”

group hierarchies are inevitable in all societies and are even a good idea to maintain order and stability

conscious beliefs, feelings, and behavior that people are perfectly willing to admit

Old-fashioned stereotypes were overt, unapologetic, and expected to be shared by others—what we now call “blatant biases.”

Of all the countries in the world, only a few have equality in their constitution, and those who do, originally defined it for a select group of people.

their most distinct social group

negative, emotional reaction to a social group

people put other people into groups, using that label to inform their evaluation of the person as a whole

became more subtle

howing prejudice (emotional bias), stereotypes (cognitive bias), and discrimination (behavioral bias)

are also psychology students,

Aside from being an overrepresentation of young, middle-class Caucasians, college students may also be more compliant and more susceptible to attitude change,

stronger cognitive skills

they apparently only did so after data collection was complete, raising further questions about the ethicality of the study and highlighting concerns about the ability of large, profit-driven corporations to subtly manipulate people’s social lives and choices.

This suggests that race-based violence is associated with the health of the economy.

replicate these findings have failed

As you might imagine, participants in the mortality-primed experimental group typically complete these fragments as COFFIN and SKULL, whereas participants in the control group complete them as COFFEE and SKILL.

were especially motivated to defend their belief system in the face of a violation of the law

national differences in implicit stereotypes predict national differences in the achievement gap between boys and girls in science and math. Our automatic associations, apparently, carry serious societal consequences.

likely has a stronger association between males and science than between females and science.

instead, a small portable audio recorder or smartphone app is used to automatically record brief snippets of participants’ conversations throughout the day for later coding and analysis.

The results showed that mothers reported experiencing more positive emotional states when away from home (including at work), whereas fathers showed the reverse pattern.

“basking in reflected glory”

Later, all three saliva samples were tested for levels of cortisol (a hormone associated with stress) and testosterone (a hormone associated with aggression).

the control group

as “social facilitation,” is reliable—performance on simple or well-rehearsed tasks tends to be enhanced when we are in the presence of others

Being aware of when our judgments are most accurate, and how our judgments are shaped by social influences, prepares us to be in a much better position to appreciate, and potentially counter, their effects.

but they are not made in a vacuum.

especially when these individuals do not have the cognitive resources available to override the attitudes’ influence.

with a greater tendency to shoot unarmed Black targets in a video game

how positively the participant evaluates the object.

For example, sometimes it can be difficult to measure people’s true opinions on racial issues, because participants fear that expressing their true attitudes will be viewed as socially unacceptable.

are our general evaluations of things

they might not want to admit to them, such as when holding a certain attitude is viewed negatively by their culture.

individuals aren’t always aware of their true attitudes

Research in this area suggests that our social context—which constantly bombards us with concepts—may prime us to form particular judgments and influence our thoughts and behaviors.

been repeatedly associated with each other, one of them can be primed—i.e., made more cognitively accessible—by exposing participants to the (strongly associated) other one.

a stereotype would be that all women are examples of this schema.

That is, automatic mimicry has been shown to lead to more positive social interactions and to increase liking between the mimicked person and the mimicking person.

The chameleon effect—where individuals nonconsciously mimic the postures, mannerisms, facial expressions, and other behaviors of their interaction partners—is an example of how people may engage in certain behaviors without conscious intention or awarenes

such as fear responses, appear to be innate.

relatively automatic process, and aspects of it can occur outside conscious awareness.

inaccuracies when our current mood is irrelevant to the judgment at hand.

For example, if you are retrieving many sad memories, you might conclude that you have had a tough, depressing life.

Some individuals are simply more uncomfortable with ambiguity than others, and are thus more motivated to reach clear, decisive conclusions.

leading to indecision

Through this motivated skepticism, people often continue to believe what they want to believe, even in the face of nearly incontrovertible evidence to the contrary.

whereby we are skeptical of evidence that goes against what we want to believe despite the strength of the evidence

directional goals,

because people are generally unaware of the many psychological mechanisms that help us adapt to and cope with negative events

how long

badly they will feel after a negative event

also overestimate how happy they will feel after a positive event

intensity of their future feelings

but we often incorrectly predict the strength or duration of those emotions.

affective forecasting

Similarly, although we are generally aware of our knowledge, abilities, and future prospects, our perceptions are often overly positive, and we display overconfidence in their accuracy and potential

for certain behaviors, peer reports are more accurate than self-reports

self-expressed interests better predict occupational choice than career inventories (

“thin-slice judgments” has shown that perceivers are able to make surprisingly accurate inferences about another person’s emotional state, personality traits, and even sexual orientation based on just snippets of information

In general, we make predictions about others quickly, based on relatively little information.

We rely on our predictions about the future to guide our actions.

dying in a plane crash is extremely rare, but people often overestimate the probability of it occurring because plane crashes tend to be highly memorable and publicized.

when base-rate information

one’s mental representation of that category.

one can simply judge the likelihood of the object belonging to a category, based on how similar it is to one’s mental representation of that category.

heuristics, which are mental shortcuts that reduce complex problem-solving to more simple, rule-based decisions.

A script for dining

greatly reduce the amount of cognitive work we need to do and allow us to “go beyond the information given”

secondhand sources.

A schema (related to the word schematic) is kind of like a mental blueprint for how we expect something to be or behave

forming schemas of the various people, objects, situations, and events we encounter

unconscious processes and implicit attitudes we are unaware of having.

What would you make of this scene? What story might you tell yourself to help explain this interesting and unusual behavior?

how people perceive and think about their social world

Changing one’s life story is at the heart of many forms of psychotherapy and counseling,

n cultures that espouse different values and narrative ideals

often aim to assimilate their autobiographical memories and aspirations to a redemptive form.

but the same stories can encourage moral righteousness and a naïve expectation that suffering will always be redeemed

American adults who enjoy high levels of mental health and civic engagement tend to construct their lives as narratives of redemption, tracking the move from sin to salvation, rags to riches, oppression to liberation, or sickness/abuse to health/recovery

culture on narrative identity

young people seek interpersonal opportunities to share and refine their developing sense of themselves as storytellers (the I) who tell stories about themselves (the Me).

er friends often come to her with their boyfriend problems.

he would like to be a marriage counselor

In more recent years, the teenager notes that her friends often come to her with their boyfriend problems.

n autobiographical reasoning, a narrator is able to derive substantive conclusions about the self from analyzing his or her own personal experiences.

must author a personalized life story that integrates our understanding of who we once were, who we are today, and who we may become in the future. The story helps to explain, for the author and for the author’s world, why the social actor does what it does and why the motivated agent wants what it wants,

By accepting some definition of who he is, usually on the basis of a function in an economy, a place in the sequence of generations, and a status in the structure of society, the adult is able to selectively reconstruct his past in such a way that, step for step, it seems to have planned him, or better, he seems to have planned it. In this sense, psychologically we do choose our parents, our family history, and the history of our kings, heroes, and gods.

It also involves achieving a sense of temporal continuity in life—a reflexive understanding of how I have come to be the person I am becoming, or put differently, how my past self has developed into my present self, and how my present self will, in turn, develop into an envisioned future self.

can influence life goals.

values and life goals.

change your values or life goals,

When you try to change your traits or roles,

always provisional,

implications, as well, for how a person moves through life as a social actor,

Committing oneself to an integrated suite of life goals and values is perhaps the greatest achievement for the self as motivated agent.

children’s self-esteem

demands on students to work hard, adhere to schedules, focus on goals, and achieve success in particular, well-defined task domains. T

construct the self as a motivated agent in the elementary school years, layered over their still-developing sense of themselves as social actors.

by the age of 4

purposeful force who moves forward in life in pursuit of self-chosen goals, values, and other desired end states.

goal-directed, intentional behavior of others,

motivated agent.

observing and imitating

motivated agent.

prioritize the motivational qualities of human behavior—the inner needs, wants, desires, goals, values, plans, programs, fears, and aversions that seem to give behavior its direction and purpose

enrich your performances in important social roles,

Each time you walk out on stage, you have a chance to start anew.

To become a more effective social actor, you may want to take aim at the important roles you play in life.

broad traits tend to be stubborn, resistant to change,

reflected appraisals of others, you realized that even your friends seem to avoid you because you bring them down.

If you have ever tried hard to change yourself, you may have taken aim at your social reputation, targeting your central traits or your social roles.

I reflexively perceive

perceived consistencies

main currency

(1) extraversion, (2) neuroticism, (3) agreeableness, (4) conscientiousness, and (5) openness to experience

self-conceptions will likely also include important social roles:

In the development of the self as a social actor, other people function like mirrors—they reflect who I am back to me.

I come to know who I am as a social actor, Mead argued, by noting how other people in my social world react to my performances.

When I fail in the presence of others, I may feel embarrassment or shame. When I violate a social rule, I may experience guilt, which may motivate me to make amends.

When I do things that win the approval of others, I feel proud of myself

Around the same time, children also begin to express social emotions such as embarrassment, shame, guilt, and pride

social acceptance and social status

get along and get ahead

live and work together in complex social groups,

is that human beings evolved to live in social groups.

actors in the everyday theatre of social life.

that important social role

to improve your appearance

we often try to manage, discipline, refine, improve, or develop the self.

the self is what happens when “I” reflects back upon “Me.” The self is both the I and the Me—it is the knower, and it is what the knower knows when the knower reflects upon itself. When you look back at yourself, what do you see?

narrative identity

the age of 2 years

Third, the self eventually becomes an autobiographical author, too, who takes stock of life — past, present, and future — to create a story about who I am, how I came to be, and where my life may be going.

the self is a motivated agent, who acts upon inner desires and formulates goals, values, and plans to guide behavior in the future.

First, the self may be seen as a social actor, who enacts roles and displays traits by performing behaviors in the presence of others