Mediation (Not meditation).

Suppose flattery leads to liking the flatterer. Now the question is what is the process that leads from hearing the flattery actually developing a liking for the flatter. This process is called the mediating process because it is a "mediator" of the independent variable (flattery) and the dependent variable (liking the flatterer). Sometimes the mediator is also called the intervening variable.

Whereas normal (univariate) analysis of variance has only one dependent variable, multivariate analysis of variance has multiple dependent variables. So in ANOVA you might test the effect of coffee on your heart rate, whereas in MANOVA you might examine the effect of coffee on your heart rate, perspiration, and nervous bouncing. Here we are testing the effect of the independent variable on a bundle of dependent variables.

When you want to know what explains a phenomenon you usually don’t have just one explanation. So, for example, the difference between men and women on measures of empathy and perspective taking could be due to genetic difference, to different assumptions about what is expected of them, or to differential desire to have intimate relations with other people. When you don’t know which of these explanations is correct, all you can say is that there is a gender difference, but in this gender variable there are several underlying processes confounded (mixed up) with each other. Trying to unconfound them means systematically investigating one of these processes at a time and isolating the one process that is truly responsible for the effect you initially found.

A. Depressive realism refers to the claim that depressed people perceive themselves realistically (not in self-enhancing ways, as most other people). There was a point when most scholars thought that depressive realism truly exists and indicates that "healthy" people are healthy in part because they have positive illusions about themselves. But the studies on which the depressive realism claim was based were not very good, and subsequent studies didn’t find the same kind of "realism" (or accuracy) They also didn’t find that excessive self-enhancement is healthy (or that excessive depressive self-criticism is healthy). What they did find is that there are conditions under which people (depressed or not) will seize the opportunity of portraying themselves in a better light than may be justified, but that there are other conditions under which they try to be pretty accurate (and often are).

A. In the printer story, the dissonant cognitions are "I just bought printer A" and "Printer B seems to be the better choice." (To tighten their connection, you might add a few more, such as "I always want to make the best choice." "Making good choices is a sign of smartness.") Sally, who chose printer A is supposed to have more dissonance (though Darrian might wonder about the salesperson’s sincerity or competence -- but that’s not really dissonance).

A. In each of the examples, the protagonists experience dissonance, which is by definition the tension between two "cognitions" (e.g., beliefs, attitudes, awareness of own behaviors, etc.). A first important step in understanding the stories is to recognize which two cognitions are dissonant. The next step is to look for "paths" out of the tension. If two things contradict each other, you can either change one, change the other, or change both. But sometimes you can't change one of the cognitions Q this is what I refer to as "blocked paths."

A. intentional, i.e., done on purpose, with control, such as forming an image, formulating a plan, searching for a name in memory. "Experiences" are unintentional, i.e., not done on purpose or with control -- they happen to the person, such as feelings, intrusive thoughts, bodily states.

Unobservable psychological events

A. It's the breaking up (segmenting) of a stream of information. When most of us in class listen to Mandarin Chinese, we will hear one long stream of sounds and cannot parse it (we don't know where the boundaries of words, phrases, sentences are). Human behavior is similar -- you have to break it up into actions (and sometimes tasks, projects).

Person-Situation Debate

Q. In lecture today, we discussed the personologists' arguments vs. the situationists' arguments. I get confused who is who. Could you clarify briefly what their positions are in a sort of bullet format?

A. It does get confusing once the arguments go back and forth, because the reasonable position is to blend both!

• at the extreme, that traits don't exist and all behavior is caused by situations
• more reasonably, that situations are stronger causal determinants of behavior than traits are
• most recently, that there are individual differences in behavior, but that these differences are not due to traits but due to complex learning and the build-up of individual schemas for certain situations (Mischel)

• at the extreme, that all situational influences on behavior rely on personality traits (e.g., obedience to authority requires an obedience trait)
• more reasonably, that traits are a pervasive influence on behavior, but that they interact with situations such that certain traits are more important in some situations and other traits are more important in other situations
• most recently, that every behavior is a complex function of traits the person has, the demands of the situation, and momentary moods, perceptions, and beliefs that are themselves a function of traits and the situation!

Social Influence

Q. Could you clarify the differences between conformity and obedience? In my notes I have conformity as behavior that follows a real or imagined norm (reference group, society, culture), and obedience as conformity with compliance, following another person's order that violates a norm you normally adhere to and involves tension. From the lectures, it seems that obedience involves inner conflict and conformity does not. However, the dictionary uses each of these terms to define the other, which also happens in real life, so I am a little confused.

A. Conformity is the broader term, so we can say that obedience is a form of conformity (but conformity is not a form of obedience). The defining features of obedience are (a) an authority demands a certain response from the target person, (b) the target person complies, even when other norms and values the person holds are thereby violated. Tension is a frequent "symptom" of obedience, not a defining feature. There are some people who happily follow orders and show little tension.

Q. In the Stanford prison experiment, it is my understanding that all of the students in both groups were aware that all of the participants were students and role-playing as guards and prisoners, right? If so, the indications of this experiment seem significantly different from Milgram's or the Third Wave, because the subjects in these two experiments were actually deceived in that they believed what they were involved in was real. It seems to me that these beliefs would evoke more meaningful or realistic results than if people knew they were just role-playing. Am I missing something here?

A. This is a correct distinction between these experiments. However, the point of the Stanford prison experiment was not to show obedience but to show the power of assigned roles, even if you know about the arbitrariness of the assignment. The experiment shows that people becometheir role, independent of personality. (Zimbardo, at the time, was a "situationist.")

A. In the context of a persuasion attempt, it refers to the target actually accepting the message (not just publicly pretending to). Sometimes researchers contrast acceptance with compliance, whereby compliance means "going along with message, even if you don’t identify with it" and acceptance means "truly identifying with message."

A. Researchers have tried to classify the influence that a group can exert on an individual into two types:

• normative influence (when you follow a group because they exemplify powerful standards and norms, when they have the ability to punish nonconformists, when you think they are "morally" right);
• informational influence (when you follow a group because they have expert knowledge or experience, and you think they are factually right in their opinion).

A. Yes, retrieval date is fine.

A. Something like:

(Malle, 2002)

Malle, B. F. (2002, November). Title. Lecture in Psychology 456/556, University of Oregon.

Q. In the article about paranormal beliefs, the authors found that one year of college moderates a person's willingness to accept paranormal beliefs. However, a recent article in the APA Monitor on Psychology reports on the difficulty of changing Psych 100 student's beliefs in the paranormal (even in the presence of disconfirming information)--do these two findings conflict?

Q. In the Milgram studies (and replications) we talked about the tension and dissonance that the subjects feel. At the same time, the only dissonance relief comes when the subject reports that they were "just about to stop". Does the actual experiment conflict with the dissonance theory? What role does the dissonance theory play in obedience? What would be the conflicting cognitions? Why isn't this true for conformity (Why doesn't conformity involve dissonance?)

A. Thinking that you were just about to stop isn't quite the only way to relieve dissonance. People also reduce a little dissonance by diffusing responsibility during the procedure, convincing themselves that the experimenter is simply unmovable, and that it is a safe procedure after all. But a large amount of dissonance will remain, and that is not in conflict with dissonance theory Q because when many or most paths are blocked, dissonance cannot be reduced.