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CH67891213.pdf
An Introduction to Psychological Science
An Introduction to Psychological Science Second Canadian Edition
Mark Krause Southern Oregon University Daniel Corts Augustana College Stephen Smith University of Winnipeg Dan Dolderman University of Toronto
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978-0-13-430220-1
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library and archives canada cataloguing in Publication
Krause, Mark A. (Mark Andrew), 1971-, author
An introduction to psychological science / Mark Krause, Daniel Corts, Stephen Smith, Dan Dolderman. — Second Canadian edition.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-13-430220-1 (hardback)
1. Psychology—Textbooks. I. Corts, Daniel Paul, 1970-, author II. Smith, Stephen D. (Stephen Douglas), 1974-, author III. Dolderman, Dan, 1972-, author IV. Title.
BF121.K73 2017 150 C2016-906938-9
For Andrea and Finn. Both of you fuel my passion and motivation for this endeavor.
I cannot thank you enough.
Mark Krause
To Kim, Sophie, and Jonah, for your patience, understanding, and forgiveness during all the hours this project has occupied me.
Dan Corts
To my brilliant wife, Jenn, and our hilarious children, Oliver and Clara. Thank you for putting up with me.
Stephen Smith
To my children, Alexandra, Kate, and Geoff, who love this world so deeply. And to my mother, who has had a huge impact on my life.
Dan Dolderman
Brief Contents 1 Introducing Psychological Science 1
2 Reading and Evaluating Scientific Research 29
3 Biological Psychology 71
4 Sensation and Perception 125
5 Consciousness 180
6 Learning 227
7 Memory 270
8 Thought and Language 313
9 Intelligence Testing 349
10 Lifespan Development 385
11 Motivation and Emotion 439
12 Personality 490
13 Social Psychology 531
14 Health, Stress, and Coping 578
15 Psychological Disorders 614
16 Therapies 653
Contents About the Authors xvii
About the Canadian Authors xvii
From the Authors xviii
Content and Features xxi
For Instructors xxvi
Acknowledgments xxviii
1 Introducing Psychological Science 1 Module 1.1 The Science of Psychology 2
The Scientific Method 3 Hypotheses: Making Predictions 3
Theories: Explaining Phenomena 4
The Biopsychosocial Model 5
Building Scientific Literacy 6
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Planning When to Study 7 Critical Thinking, Curiosity, and a Dose of Healthy Skepticism 8
Myths in Mind Abducted by Aliens! 9
Summary 10
Module 1.2 How Psychology Became a Science 11 Psychology’s Philosophical and Scientific Origins 12
Influences from the Ancients: Philosophical Insights into
Behaviour 12
Influences from Physics: Experimenting with the Mind 13
Influences from Evolutionary Theory: The Adaptive Functions of Behaviour 13
Influences from Medicine: Diagnoses and Treatments 15
The Influence of Social Sciences: Measuring and Comparing Humans 16
The Beginnings of Contemporary Psychology 18 Structuralism and Functionalism: The Beginnings of Psychology 18
The Rise of Behaviourism 19
Radical Behaviourism 20
Humanistic Psychology Emerges 21
The Brain and Behaviour 21
The Cognitive Revolution 21
Social and Cultural Influences 23
Emerging Themes in Psychology 24 Psychology of Women 24
Comparing Cultures 25
The Neuroimaging Explosion 25
The Search for the Positive 26
Psychology in the Real World 26
Summary 28
2 Reading and Evaluating Scientific Research 29
Module 2.1 Principles of Scientific Research 30 Five Characteristics of Quality Scientific Research 31
Scientific Measurement: Objectivity 31
Scientific Measurement: Reliability, and Validity 32
Generalizability of Results 33
Sources of Bias in Psychological Research 34
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Demand Characteristics and Participant Behaviour 35
Techniques That Reduce Bias 36
Sharing the Results 37
Psych@ The Hospital: The Placebo Effect 37 Replication 38
Five Characteristics of Poor Research 39
Summary 41
Module 2.2 Scientific Research Designs 42 Descriptive Research 43
Case Studies 43
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Case Studies as a Form of Scientific Research 44
Naturalistic Observation 45
Surveys and Questionnaires 46
Correlational Research 47
Myths in Mind Beware of Illusory Correlations 48
Experimental Research 49 The Experimental Method 49
The Quasi-Experimental Method 50
Converging Operations 50
Summary 51
Module 2.3 Ethics in Psychological Research 53 Promoting the Welfare of Research Participants 54
Weighing the Risks and Benefits of Research 54
Obtaining Informed Consent 55
The Right to Anonymity and Confidentiality 56
The Welfare of Animals in Research 56
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Animal Models of Disease 57 REBs for Animal-Based Research 59
Ethical Collection, Storage, and Reporting of Data 59
Summary 61
Module 2.4 A Statistical Primer 62 Descriptive Statistics 63
Frequency 63
Central Tendency 63
Variability 65
Hypothesis Testing: Evaluating the Outcome of a Study 66
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Statistical Significance 68
Summary 70
3 Biological Psychology 71 Module 3.1 Genetic and Evolutionary Perspectives on Behaviour 72
Heredity and Behaviour 73 The Genetic Code 73
Behavioural Genomics: The Molecular Approach 75
Behavioural Genetics: Twin and Adoption Studies 75
Myths in Mind Single Genes and Behaviour 76 Gene Expression and Behaviour 78
Evolutionary Insights into Human Behaviour 79 Evolutionary Psychology 80
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Hunters and Gatherers: Men, Women, and Spatial Memory 81
Sexual Selection and Evolution 83
BIOPSYCHOSOCIAL PERSPECTIVES Sexual Selection and the Colour Red 84
Summary 86
Module 3.2 How the Nervous System Works: Cells and Neurotransmitters 88
Neural Communication 89 The Neuron 89
Myths in Mind We Are Born with All the Brain Cells We Will Ever Have 90
Glial Cells 91
The Neuron’s Electrical System: Resting and Action Potentials 91
The Chemical Messengers: Neurotransmitters and Hormones 93 Types of Neurotransmitters 94
Drug Effects on Neurotransmission 95
Hormones and the Endocrine System 96
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Testosterone and Aggression 97 Neurons in Context 99
Summary 100
Module 3.3 Structure and Organization of the Nervous System 101 Divisions of the Nervous System 102
The Central Nervous System 102
The Peripheral Nervous System 102
The Brain and Its Structures 104 The Hindbrain: Sustaining the Body 104
The Midbrain: Sensation and Action 105
The Forebrain: Emotion, Memory, and Thought 106
The Cerebral Cortex 108
The Four Lobes 108
Left Brain, Right Brain: Hemispheric Specialization 111
Psych@ The Gym 111 The Changing Brain: Neuroplasticity 112
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Neuroplasticity and Recovery from Brain Injury 113
Summary 115
Module 3.4 Windows to the Brain: Measuring and Observing Brain Activity 116
Insights from Brain Damage 117 Lesioning and Brain Stimulation 117
Structural and Functional Neuroimaging 119 Structural Neuroimaging 119
Functional Neuroimaging 120
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Functional MRI and Behaviour 122
Summary 124
4 Sensation and Perception 125 Module 4.1 Sensation and Perception at a Glance 126
Sensing the World Around Us 127 Stimulus Thresholds 129
Signal Detection 130
Priming and Subliminal Perception 131
Myths in Mind Setting the Record Straight on Subliminal Messaging 131
Perceiving the World Around Us 132 Gestalt Principles of Perception 132
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Backward Messages in Music 134
Attention and Perception 136
Summary 137
Module 4.2 The Visual System 139 The Human Eye 140
How the Eye Gathers Light 140
The Structure of the Eye 141
The Retina: From Light to Nerve Impulse 142
The Retina and the Perception of Colours 144
Common Visual Disorders 145
Visual Perception and the Brain 146 The Ventral Stream 148
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Are Faces Special? 148 The Dorsal Stream 151
Depth Perception 152
Psych@ The Artist’s Studio 153
Summary 155
Module 4.3 The Auditory and Vestibular Systems 156 Sound and the Structures of the Ear 157
Sound 157
The Human Ear 157
The Perception of Sound 160 Sound Localization: Finding the Source 160
Theories of Pitch Perception 160
Auditory Perception and the Brain 161
The Perception of Music 162
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: The Perception of Musical Beats 162
The Vestibular System 164 Sensation and the Vestibular System 164
The Vestibular System and the Brain 165
Summary 165
Module 4.4 Touch and the Chemical Senses 167 The Sense of Touch 168
Feeling Pain 169
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Empathy and Pain 171 Phantom Limb Pain 172
The Chemical Senses: Taste and Smell 173 The Gustatory System: Taste 173
The Olfactory System: Smell 175
Multimodal Integration 176 What Is Multimodal Integration? 176
Synesthesia 177
Summary 178
5 Consciousness 180 Module 5.1 Biological Rhythms of Consciousness: Wakefulness and Sleep 181
What Is Sleep? 182 Biological Rhythms 182
The Stages of Sleep 184
Why Do We Need Sleep? 186 Theories of Sleep 186
Sleep Deprivation and Sleep Displacement 187
Theories of Dreaming 190 The Psychoanalytic Approach 190
The Activation– Synthesis Hypothesis 190
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Dreams, REM Sleep, and Learning 191
Disorders and Problems with Sleep 193 Insomnia 193
Nightmares and Night Terrors 194
Movement Disturbances 194
Sleep Apnea 195
Narcolepsy 196
Overcoming Sleep Problems 196
Summary 197
Module 5.2 Altered States of Consciousness: Hypnosis, Mind- Wandering, and Disorders of Consciousness 199
Hypnosis 200 Theories of Hypnosis 200
Applications of Hypnosis 201
Myths in Mind Recovering Lost Memories through Hypnosis 202
Mind-Wandering 203 What Is Mind-Wandering? 203
Mind-Wandering and the Brain 203
The Benefits of Mind-Wandering 204
Disorders of Consciousness 205
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Assessing Consciousness in the Vegetative State 207
Summary 210
Module 5.3 Drugs and Conscious Experience 211 Physical and Psychological Effects of Drugs 212
Short-Term Effects 212
Long-Term Effects 213
Commonly Abused “Recreational” Drugs 215 Stimulants 215
Hallucinogens 217
Marijuana 218
BIOPSYCHOSOCIAL PERSPECTIVES Recreational and Spiritual Uses of Salvia Divinorum 219 Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Marijuana, Memory, and Cognition 219
Opiates 221
Legal Drugs and Their Effects on Consciousness 222 Sedatives 222
Prescription Drug Abuse 222
Alcohol 224
Why Are Some Drugs Legal and Others Illegal? 224
Psych@ University Parties 224
Summary 226
6 Learning 227 Module 6.1 Classical Conditioning: Learning by Association 228
Pavlov’s Dogs: Classical Conditioning of Salivation 229 Evolutionary Function of the CR 231
Classical Conditioning and the Brain 231
Processes of Classical Conditioning 233 Acquisition, Extinction, and Spontaneous Recovery 233
Stimulus Generalization and Discrimination 234
Applications of Classical Conditioning 235 Conditioned Emotional Responses 235
Evolutionary Role for Fear Conditioning 236
Conditioned Taste Aversions 237
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Conditioning and Negative Political Advertising 239
Drug Tolerance and Conditioning 241
Summary 242
Module 6.2 Operant Conditioning: Learning through Consequences 244 Basic Principles of Operant Conditioning 245
Reinforcement and Punishment 245
Positive and Negative Reinforcement and Punishment 247
Shaping 248
Applying Operant Conditioning 248
Processes of Operant Conditioning 249 Primary and Secondary Reinforcers 249
Discrimination and Generalization 250
Delayed Reinforcement and Extinction 251
Reward Devaluation 251
Reinforcement Schedules and Operant Conditioning 252 Schedules of Reinforcement 252
Psych@ Never Use Multiline Slot Machines 254
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Reinforcement and Superstition 255
Applying Punishment 256
Are Classical and Operant Learning Distinct Events? 257
Summary 258
Module 6.3 Cognitive and Observational Learning 260 Cognitive Perspectives on Learning 261
Latent Learning 261
S-O-R Theory of Learning 262
Observational Learning 262 Processes Supporting Observational Learning 263
Myths in Mind Is Teaching Uniquely Human? 264 Imitation and Mirror Neurons 265
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Linking Media Exposure to Behaviour 265
BIOPSYCHOSOCIAL PERSPECTIVES Violence, Video Games, and Culture 268
Summary 269
7 Memory 270 Module 7.1 Memory Systems 271
The Atkinson-Shiffrin Model 272 Sensory Memory 273
Short-Term Memory and the Magical Number 7 274
Long-Term Memory 275
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Distinguishing Short-Term from Long-Term Memory Stores 276
The Working Memory Model: An Active STM System 279 The Phonological Loop 280
The Visuospatial Sketchpad 280
The Episodic Buffer 281
The Central Executive 281
Working Memory: Putting the Pieces Together 281
Long-Term Memory Systems: Declarative and Nondeclarative Memories 282
Declarative Memory 282
Nondeclarative Memory 283
The Cognitive Neuroscience of Memory 283 Memory at the Cellular Level 283
Memory, the Brain, and Amnesia 284
Stored Memories and the Brain 285
Summary 287
Module 7.2 Encoding and Retrieving Memories 288 Encoding and Retrieval 289
Rehearsal: The Basics of Encoding 289
Levels of Processing 290
Retrieval 290
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Context-Dependent Memory 291 State-Dependent Memory 294
Mood-Dependent Memory 294
Emotional Memories 295 Flashbulb Memories 296
Myths in Mind The Accuracy of Flashbulb Memories 297
Forgetting and Remembering 298 The Forgetting Curve: How Soon We Forget … 298
Mnemonics: Improving Your Memory Skills 298
Summary 301
Module 7.3 Constructing and Reconstructing Memories 302 How Memories Are Organized and Constructed 303
The Schema: An Active Organization Process 303
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: How Schemas Influence Memory 303
BIOPSYCHOSOCIAL PERSPECTIVES Your Earliest Memories 305
Memory Reconstruction 306 The Perils of Eyewitness Testimony 306
Psych@ Court: Is Eyewitness Testimony Reliable? 308 Imagination and False Memories 308
Creating False Memories in the Laboratory 309
The Danger of False Remembering 310
Summary 312
8 Thought and Language 313 Module 8.1 The Organization of Knowledge 314
Concepts and Categories 315 Classical Categories: Definitions and Rules 315
Prototypes: Categorization by Comparison 315
Networks and Hierarchies 316
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Priming and Semantic Networks 318
Memory, Culture, and Categories 319 Categorization and Experience 319
Categories, Memory, and the Brain 320
BIOPSYCHOSOCIAL PERSPECTIVES Culture and Categorical Thinking 321
Myths in Mind How Many Words for Snow? 322 Categories and Culture 322
Summary 323
Module 8.2 Problem Solving, Judgment, and Decision Making 324 Defining and Solving Problems 325
Problem-Solving Strategies and Techniques 325
Cognitive Obstacles 326
Psych@ Problem Solving and Humour 327
Judgment and Decision Making 328 Conjunction Fallacies and Representativeness 328
The Availability Heuristic 329
Anchoring and Framing Effects 330
Belief Perseverance and Confirmation Bias 331
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Maximizing and Satisficing in Complex Decisions 332
Summary 335
Module 8.3 Language and Communication 336 What Is Language? 337
Early Studies of Language 337
Properties of Language 338
Phonemes and Morphemes: The Basic Ingredients of Language 339
Syntax: The Language Recipe 339
Pragmatics: The Finishing Touches 340
The Development of Language 341 Infants, Sound Perception, and Language Acquisition 341
Producing Spoken Language 342
Sensitive Periods for Language 342
The Bilingual Brain 343
Genes, Evolution, and Language 344
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Genes and Language 344 Can Animals Use Language? 346
Summary 348
9 Intelligence Testing 349 Module 9.1 Measuring Intelligence 350
Different Approaches to Intelligence Testing 351 Intelligence and Perception: Galton’s Anthropometric Approach 351
Intelligence and Thinking: The Stanford– Binet Test 352
The Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale 353
Raven’s Progressive Matrices 355
The Checkered Past of Intelligence Testing 356 IQ Testing and the Eugenics Movement 356
The Race and IQ Controversy 357
Problems with the Racial Superiority Interpretation 358
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Beliefs about Intelligence 358
Summary 361
Module 9.2 Understanding Intelligence 362 Intelligence as a Single, General Ability 363
Spearman’s General Intelligence 363
Does G Tell Us the Whole Story? 364
Intelligence as Multiple, Specific Abilities 365 The Hierarchical Model of Intelligence 365
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Testing for Fluid and Crystallized Intelligence 366
Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory of Intelligence 368
Myths in Mind Learning Styles 369 Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences 369
Psych@ The NFL Draft 370
The Battle of the Sexes 371 Do Males and Females have Unique Cognitive Skills? 372
Summary 373
Module 9.3 Biological, Environmental, and Behavioural Influences on Intelligence 374
Biological Influences on Intelligence 375 The Genetics of Intelligence: Twin and Adoption Studies 375
The Heritability of Intelligence 375
Behavioural Genomics 376
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Brain Size and Intelligence 377 Environmental Influences on Intelligence 379
Birth Order 379
Socioeconomic Status 380
Nutrition 380
Stress 381
Education 381
The Flynn Effect: Is Everyone Getting Smarter? 381
Behavioural Influences on Intelligence 382 Brain Training Programs 383
Nootropic Drugs 383
Summary 384
10 Lifespan Development 385 Module 10.1 Physical Development from Conception through Infancy 386
Methods for Measuring Developmental Trends 387 Patterns of Development: Stages and Continuity 387
Zygotes to Infants: From One Cell to Billions 388 Fertilization and Gestation 388
Fetal Brain Development 388
Nutrition, Teratogens, and Fetal Development 390
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: The Long-Term Effects of Premature Birth 392
Myths in Mind Vaccinations and Autism 394
Sensory and Motor Development in Infancy 394 Motor Development in the First Year 396
Summary 399
Module 10.2 Infancy and Childhood: Cognitive and Emotional Development 400
Cognitive Changes: Piaget’s Cognitive Development Theory 401 The Sensorimotor Stage: Living in the Material World 401
The Preoperational Stage: Quantity and Numbers 402
The Concrete Operational Stage: Using Logical Thought 403
The Formal Operational Stage: Abstract and Hypothetical Thought 403
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Evaluating Piaget 404 Complementary Approaches to Piaget 405
Social Development, Attachment, and Self-Awareness 406 What Is Attachment? 407
Types of Attachment 407
Development of Attachment 409
Self Awareness 409
Psychosocial Development 412 Development across the Lifespan 412
Parenting and Prosocial Behaviour 413
Parenting and Attachment 414
Summary 415
Module 10.3 Adolescence 417 Physical Changes in Adolescence 418
Emotional Challenges in Adolescence 419 Emotional Regulation during Adolescence 420
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Adolescent Risk and Decision Making 420
Cognitive Development: Moral Reasoning vs. Emotions 422 Kohlberg’s Moral Development: Learning Right from Wrong 422
BIOPSYCHOSOCIAL PERSPECTIVES Emotion and Disgust 424
Social Development: Identity and Relationships 425 Who Am I? Identity Formation during Adolescence 425
Peer Groups 425
Romantic Relationships 426
Summary 427
Module 10.4 Adulthood and Aging 428 From Adolescence through Middle Age 429
Emerging Adults 429
Early and Middle Adulthood 429
Love and Marriage 431
Parenting 432
Late Adulthood 433 Happiness and Relationships 433
The Eventual Decline of Aging 434
Psych@ The Driver’s Seat 435
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Aging and Cognitive Change 436
Summary 438
11 Motivation and Emotion 439 Module 11.1 Hunger and Eating 440
Physiological Aspects of Hunger 442 Food and Reward 443
Psychological Aspects of Hunger 445 Attention and Eating 445
Eating and Semantic Networks 446
Eating and the Social Context 446
Disorders of Eating 448 Anorexia and Bulimia 448
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: The Effect of Media Depictions of Beauty on Body Image 450
Summary 451
Module 11.2 Sex 452 Human Sexual Behaviour: Psychological Influences 453
Psychological Measures of Sexual Motivation 453
Human Sexual Behaviour: Physiological Influences 455 Physiological Measures of Sex 455
Sexual Orientation: Biology and Environment 456
Transgender and Transsexual Individuals 458
Psych@ Sex Ed 459
Human Sexual Behaviour: Cultural Influences 460 Sex and Technology 461
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Does Sex Sell? 462
Summary 464
Module 11.3 Social and Achievement Motivation 465 Belonging and Love Needs 466
Belonging Is a Need, Not a Want 467
Love 467
Belonging, Self-Esteem, and Our Worldview 468
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Terror Management Theory and the Need to Belong 468
Achievement Motivation 470 Self-Determination Theory 471
Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivation 472
A Continuum of Motivation 472
Cultural Differences in Motivation 473
Summary 475
Module 11.4 Emotion 476 Physiology of Emotion 477
The Initial Response 477
The Autonomic Response: Fight or Flight? 478
The Emotional Response: Movement 479
Emotional Regulation 479
Experiencing Emotions 479
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: The Two-Factor Theory of Emotion 481
Expressing Emotions 484 Emotional Faces and Bodies 484
Culture, Emotion, and Display Rules 486
Culture, Context, and Emotion 487
Summary 489
12 Personality 490 Module 12.1 Contemporary Approaches to Personality 491
The Trait Perspective 492 Early Trait Research 492
The Five Factor Model 493
Openness 494
Conscientiousness 495
Extraversion 495
Agreeableness 495
Neuroticism 495
Beyond the Big Five: The Personality of Evil? 496 Honesty–Humility 496
The Dark Triad 496
Right-Wing Authoritarianism 497
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Right-Wing Authoritarianism at the Group Level 497
Personality Traits over the Lifespan 499 Temperaments 499
Is Personality Stable over Time? 499
Personality Traits and States 500
Behaviourist and Social-Cognitive Perspectives 501 The Behaviourist Perspective 501
The Social-Cognitive Perspective 502
Summary 503
Module 12.2 Cultural and Biological Approaches to Personality 505 Culture and Personality 506
Universals and Differences across Cultures: The Big Five 506
Personality Structures in Different Cultures 506
Comparing Personality Traits between Nations 507
BIOPSYCHOSOCIAL PERSPECTIVES How Culture Shapes Our Development: Cultural Differences in the Self 507
How Genes Affect Personality 508 Twin Studies 509
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: From Molecules to Personality 510
The Role of Evolution in Personality 511 Animal Behaviour: The Evolutionary Roots of Personality 511
Why There Are So Many Different Personalities: The Evolutionary Explanation 512
Myths in Mind Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus 513
The Brain and Personality 514 Extraversion and Arousal 514
Contemporary Research: Images of Personality in the Brain 515
Extraversion 515
Neuroticism 515
Agreeableness 515
Conscientiousness 515
Openness to Experience 515
Summary 516
Module 12.3 Psychodynamic and Humanistic Approaches to Personality 518
The Psychodynamic Perspective 519 Assumptions of Psychodynamic Theories 519
Unconscious Processes and Psychodynamics 520
The Structure of Personality 520
Defence Mechanisms 521
Personality Development: The Psychosexual Stages 522
The Oral Stage (0–18 Months) 523
The Anal Stage (18 Months–3 Years) 523
The Phallic Stage (3–6 Years) 523
The Latency Stage (6–13 years) 524
The Genital Stage 524
Exploring the Unconscious with Projective Tests 525
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Perceiving Others as a Projective Test 526
Alternatives to the Psychodynamic Approach 527 Analytical Psychology 527
The Power of Social Factors 528
Humanistic Perspectives 528
Summary 529
13 Social Psychology 531 Module 13.1 The Power of the Situation: Social Influences on Behaviour 532
The Person and the Situation 533 Mimicry and Social Norms 534
Group Dynamics: Social Loafing and Social Facilitation 535
Groupthink 536
The Asch Experiments: Conformity 537
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Examining Why People Conform: Seeing Is Believing 538
The Bystander Effect: Situational Influences on Helping Behaviour 541
Social Roles and Obedience 544 The Stanford Prison Study 544
Obedience to Authority: The Milgram Experiment 546
Summary 549
Module 13.2 Social Cognition 551 Person Perception 552
Thin Slices of Behaviour 553
Self-Fulfilling Prophecies and Other Consequences of First Impressions 553
The Self in the Social World 554 Projecting the Self onto Others: False Consensus and Naive
Realism 554
Self-Serving Biases and Attributions 555
Ingroups and Outgroups 556
Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Discrimination 557
Myths in Mind Are Only Negative Aspects of Stereotypes Problematic? 558
Prejudice in a Politically Correct World 558
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Explicit versus Implicit Measures of Prejudice 559
Psych@ The Law Enforcement Academy 561 Improving Intergroup Relations 562
Summary 563
Module 13.3 Attitudes, Behaviour, and Effective Communication 564 Changing People’s Behaviour 565
Persuasion: Changing Attitudes through Communication 565
Using the Central Route Effectively 566 Make It Personal 567
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: The Identifiable Victim Effect 568 Value Appeals 570
Preaching or Flip-Flopping? One-Sided vs. Two-Sided Messages 570
Emotions in the Central Route 570
Using the Peripheral Route Effectively 572 Authority 572
Liking 572
Social Validation 572
Reciprocity 572
Consistency 573
The Attitude–Behaviour Feedback Loop 574 Cognitive Dissonance 574
Attitudes and Actions 575
Summary 576
14 Health, Stress, and Coping 578 Module 14.1 Behaviour and Health 579
Smoking 580
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Media Exposure and Smoking 580
Efforts to Prevent Smoking 581
Obesity 582 Defining Healthy Weights and Obesity 583
Genetics and Body Weight 584
The Sedentary Lifestyle 584
Social Factors 585
Psychology and Weight Loss 585
BIOPSYCHOSOCIAL PERSPECTIVES Ethnicity, Economics, and Obesity 585
Psychosocial Influences on Health 586 Poverty and Discrimination 586
Family and Social Environment 587
Social Contagion 587
Summary 588
Module 14.2 Stress and Illness 590 What Causes Stress? 591
Stress and Performance 592
Physiology of Stress 593 The Stress Pathways 594
Oxytocin: To Tend and Befriend 594
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Hormones, Relationships, and Health 596
Stress, Immunity, and Illness 597 Stress, Personality, and Heart Disease 598
Myths in Mind Stress and Ulcers 599 Stress, Food, and Drugs 599
Stress, the Brain, and Disease 599
Summary 601
Module 14.3 Coping and Well-Being 602 Coping 603
Positive Coping Strategies 603
Optimism and Pessimism 603
Resilience 604
Biofeedback 605
Meditation and Relaxation 605
Psych@ Church 607 Exercise 608
Perceived Control 609
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Compensatory Control and Health 610
Summary 612
15 Psychological Disorders 614 Module 15.1 Defining and Classifying Psychological Disorders 615
Defining Abnormal Behaviour 616 What Is “Normal” Behaviour? 617
Psychology’s Puzzle: How to Diagnose Psychological Disorders 617
Critiquing the DSM 618
The Power of a Diagnosis 619
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Labelling and Mental Disorders 619
BIOPSYCHOSOCIAL PERSPECTIVES Symptoms, Treatments, and Culture 621
Applications of Psychological Diagnoses 622 The Mental Disorder Defence (AKA the Insanity Defence) 622
Summary 623
Module 15.2 Personality and Dissociative Disorders 624 Defining and Classifying Personality Disorders 625
Borderline Personality 625
Narcissistic Personality 626
Histrionic Personality 626
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Antisocial Personality Disorder
626 The Biopsychosocial Approach to Personality Disorders 629
Psychological Factors 629
Sociocultural Factors 629
Biological Factors 629
Dissociative Identity Disorder 630 Types of Dissociative Disorders 630
Is Dissociative Identity Disorder “Real?” 630
Summary 631
Module 15.3 Anxiety, Obsessive–Compulsive, and Depressive Disorders 633
Anxiety Disorders 634 Varieties of Anxiety Disorders 634
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Specific Phobias 635 The Vicious Cycle of Anxiety Disorders 637
Obsessive–Compulsive Disorder (OCD) 637
Mood Disorders 639 Types of Mood Disorders 639
Cognitive Aspects of Depression 639
Biological Aspects of Depression 640
Sociocultural and Environmental Influences on Mood Disorders 641
Suicide 641
Psych@ The Suicide Helpline 642
Summary 643
Module 15.4 Schizophrenia 644 Symptoms and Types of Schizophrenia 645
Stages of Schizophrenia 645
Symptoms of Schizophrenia 645
Common Sub-Types of Schizophrenia 646
Myths in Mind Schizophrenia Is Not a Sign of Violence or of Being a “Mad Genius” 647
Explaining Schizophrenia 648 Genetics 648
Schizophrenia and the Nervous System 648
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: The Neurodevelopmental Hypothesis 649
Environmental and Social Influences on Schizophrenia 650
Culture and Schizophrenia 651
Summary 652
16 Therapies 653 Module 16.1 Treating Psychological Disorders 654
Barriers to Psychological Treatment 655 Stigma about Mental Illness 655
Gender Roles 656
Logistical Barriers: Expense and Availability 656
Involuntary Treatment 656
Mental Health Providers and Settings 657 Mental Health Providers 657
Inpatient Treatment and Deinstitutionalization 658
The Importance of Community Psychology 659
Psych@ The University Mental Health Counselling Centre 659
Evaluating Treatments 660 Empirically Supported Treatments 660
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Can Self-Help Treatments Be Effective? 661
Summary 663
Module 16.2 Psychological Therapies 664 Insight Therapies 665
Psychoanalysis: Exploring the Unconscious 665
Modern Psychodynamic Therapies 666
Humanistic–Existential Psychotherapy 666
Evaluating Insight Therapies 667
Behavioural, Cognitive, and Group Therapies 668 Systematic Desensitization 668
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Virtual Reality Therapies 669 Aversive Conditioning 671
Cognitive–Behavioural Therapies 671
Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy 672
Group and Family Therapies 673
Evaluating Cognitive–Behavioural Therapies 673
Summary 674
Module 16.3 Biomedical Therapies 676
Drug Treatments 677 Antidepressants 677
Myths in Mind Antidepressant Drugs Are Happiness Pills 678
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Is St. John’s Wort Effective? 679 Mood Stabilizers 680
Antianxiety Drugs 680
Antipsychotic Drugs 680
Evaluating Drug Therapies 681
Technological and Surgical Methods 682 Focal Lesions 683
Electroconvulsive Therapy 683
Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation 683
Deep Brain Stimulation 684
Summary 685
Glossary 686
References 701
Name Index 752
Subject Index 766
Module 6.1 Classical Conditioning: Learning by Association
Brenda Carson/Fotolia
Learning Objectives
Know . . . the key terminology involved in classical conditioning. Understand . . . how responses learned through classical conditioning can be acquired and lost.
6.1a 6.1b
What do you think of when you smell freshly baked cookies? Chances are you associate the smell of cookies with your mother or grandmother, and immediately experience a flood of memories associated with them. These associations form naturally. It is quite unlikely that your grandmother shoved a chocolate chip cookie under your nose and screamed, “Remember me!” Instead, you linked these two stimuli together in your mind; now, the smell of cookies is associated with the idea of grandmother. This ability to associate stimuli provides important evolutionary advantages: It means that you can use one stimulus to predict the appearance of another, and that your body can initiate its response to the second stimulus before it even appears. Although the link between your grandmother and the smell of cookies is not vital to your survival, similar associations such as the smell of a food that made you sick and a feeling of revulsion just might. Interestingly, we are not the only species with this ability—even the simplest animals (such as the earthworm) can learn by association, suggesting that these associations are in fact critical for survival. In this module, we will explore the different processes that influence how these associations form.
Focus Questions
1. Which types of behaviours can be learned? 2. Do all instances of classical conditioning go undetected by the
individual?
Understand . . . the role of biological and evolutionary factors in classical conditioning. Apply . . . the concepts and terms of classical conditioning to new examples. Analyze . . . the use of negative political advertising to condition emotional responses to candidates.
6.1c
6.1d
6.1e
Learning is a process by which behaviour or knowledge changes as a result of experience. To many people, the term “learning” signifies the activities that students do—reading, listening, and taking tests in order to acquire new
information. This process, which is known as cognitive learning, is just one type of learning, however. Another way that we learn is by associative learning, which is the focus of this module.
Pavlov’s Dogs: Classical Conditioning of Salivation
Research on associative learning has a long history in psychology, dating back to Ivan Pavlov (1849–1936), a Russian physiologist and the 1904 Nobel laureate
in medicine (for work on digestion, not his now-famous conditioning research). Pavlov studied digestion, using dogs as a model species for his experiments. As a part of his normal research procedure, he collected saliva and other gastric secretions from the dogs when they were presented with meat powder. Pavlov and his assistants noticed that as they prepared dogs for procedures, even before any meat powder was presented, the dogs would start salivating. This curious observation led Pavlov to consider the possibility that digestive
responses were more than just simple reflexes elicited by food. If dogs salivate in anticipation of food, then perhaps the salivary response can also be learned (Pavlov’s lab assistants referred to them as “psychic secretions”). Pavlov began conducting experiments in which he first presented a sound from a metronome, a device that produces ticking sounds at set intervals, and then presented meat powder to the dogs. After pairing the sound with the food several times, Pavlov
discovered that the metronome could elicit salivation by itself (see Figure 6.1 ).
Figure 6.1 Associative Learning Although much information may pass through the dog’s brain, in Pavlov’s experiments on classical conditioning an association was made between the clicking sound of a metronome and the food. (Pavlov used a metronome as well as other devices for presenting sounds.)
Pavlov’s discovery began a long tradition of inquiry into what is now called classical conditioning or Pavlovian conditioning —a form of associative learning in which an organism learns to associate a neutral stimulus (e.g., a sound) with a biologically relevant stimulus (e.g., food), which results in a change in the response to the previously neutral stimulus (e.g., salivation). You can think
about classical conditioning in mechanical terms—that is, one event causes
another. A stimulus is an external event or cue that elicits a perceptual response; this occurs regardless of whether the event is important or not. Some stimuli— such as food, water, pain, or sexual contact—elicit responses instinctively (i.e., without any learning being required). Each of these is an example of an unconditioned stimulus (US) , a stimulus that elicits a reflexive response without learning. An unconditioned response (UR) , on the other hand, is a reflexive, unlearned reaction to an unconditioned stimulus. URs could include hunger, drooling, expressions of pain, and sexual responses. Again, you do not need to learn these; they occur fairly automatically. In Pavlov’s experiment, meat
powder elicited unconditioned salivation in his dogs (see the top panel of Figure 6.2 ). The link between the US and the UR is, by definition, unlearned. The dog’s parents did not have to teach it to salivate when food appeared; this response occurs naturally.
Figure 6.2 Pavlov’s Salivary Conditioning Experiment Food elicits the unconditioned response of salivation. Before conditioning, the sound of the metronome elicits no response by the dog. During conditioning, the
metronome’s clicking repeatedly precedes the food. After conditioning, the sound of the metronome alone elicits salivation. Interestingly, the term “conditioning” was actually a translation error. Pavlov initially used the term “conditional” stimulus to describe stimuli that were previously unimportant (or neutral) but that later acquired greater significance due to their ability to signal the upcoming occurrence (or, in some cases, nonoccurrence) of a biologically important stimulus. These stimuli can be contrasted with stimuli such as food, which are relevant to an animal’s survival and therefore trigger an almost automatic—or “unconditional”—response such as salivating. These terms were mistranslated into English as “conditioned” and “unconditioned.”
A defining characteristic of classical conditioning is that a neutral stimulus comes to elicit a response. It does so because the neutral stimulus is paired with, and therefore predicts, an unconditioned stimulus. In Pavlov’s experiment, the sound
of the metronome was originally a neutral stimulus because it did not elicit a response, least of all salivation (see Figure 6.2 ); however, over time, it began to influence the dogs’ responses because of its association with food. In this
case, the metronome became a conditioned stimulus (CS) , a once-neutral stimulus that later elicits a conditioned response because it has a history of being paired with an unconditioned stimulus. A conditioned response (CR) is the learned response that occurs to the conditioned stimulus. In other words, after being repeatedly paired with the US, the once-neutral metronome clicking in Pavlov’s experiment became a conditioned stimulus (CS) because it elicited the conditioned response of salivation. To establish that conditioning has taken
place, the metronome’s sound (CS) must elicit salivation in the absence of food (US; see the bottom panel of Figure 6.2 ).
A common point of confusion is the difference between a conditioned response and an unconditioned response—in Pavlov’s experiment, they are both salivation. What distinguishes the UR from the CR is the stimulus that elicits them. Salivation is a UR if it occurs in response to a US (food). Salivation is a CR if it occurs in response to a CS (the clicking of the metronome). A CS can have
this effect only if it becomes associated with a US. In other words, a UR is a naturally occurring response whereas a CR must be learned.
Evolutionary Function of the CR
In Pavlov’s original experiments, the response to the signal (after pairings) and to food were exactly the same: salivation. It is important to note that the UR and CR
do not have to be identical. In Pavlov’s study, it made good evolutionary sense to salivate just prior to receiving food. Saliva moisturizes the mouth and is a critical first step in the digestive process. An animal with the ability to prepare in this way would process food more efficiently. Therefore, the CR of salivation served a useful function. Following this line of thinking, what do you think would happen if the US was unpleasant, painful, and potentially life threatening? The answer from an evolutionary perspective is pretty obvious: avoid death and minimize physical damage.
Many animals have an instinct to “freeze” when they are scared. You see this when deer are caught in headlights. They remain motionless—why? The reason is that many of their predators, such as the wolf, have perceptual systems that are quite sensitive to detecting movement; so remaining still has an evolutionary survival advantage. (Highways weren’t part of the evolution of deer.) However, if the wolf were to begin to stalk the deer, it should immediately stop freezing and run. So, there are two different defensive responses associated with fear: freezing and fleeing.
Psychologists have spent decades trying to study these defensive responses in the lab (although these experiments used rodents rather than the potentially more dramatic combination of deer and wolves). For instance, many conditioning experiments have studied the ability of rats to associate a cue (e.g., a tone) with a painful electric shock to their feet. Some of the URs to shock include flinching, jumping, and pain. However, once the rat has learned to associate the tone with the shock, the rat’s primary learned response to the tone is to “freeze” (the CR). The freezing CR has served many species well for millions of years, so it is the natural response to a fear-inducing signal in the laboratory. The lesson from this experimental situation is that UR and the CR are often quite different responses. The CR has been selected by evolution to be a helpful response.
The UR and CR sometimes differ. CRs are often evolutionarily useful behaviours such as the “freezing” response. SCS Studio/Corbis/Getty Images
This example isn’t meant to confuse you! Rather, it is to show you that classical conditioning has a dramatic effect on an organism’s survival. In other words,
conditioning has an evolutionary function, and so the CR and the UR are not necessarily the same response.
Classical Conditioning and the Brain
Classical conditioning can occur in extremely simple organisms such as Aplysia, a type of sea slug (Hawkins, 1984; Pinsker et al., 1970). Of course, the number
of possible conditioned responses is more limited in the sea slug than in humans. But, the fact that both of these species can be classically conditioned suggests that at its heart, classical conditioning is a simple biological process. The connections between specific groups of neurons (or specific axon terminals and receptor sites on neurons) become strengthened during each instance of
classical conditioning (Murphy & Glanzman, 1997).
According to the Hebb Rule (named after Canadian neurologist Donald Hebb;
see Module 7.1 ), when a weak connection between neurons is stimulated at the same time as a strong connection, the weak connection becomes strengthened. So, before conditioning, there may be a strong connection between perceiving a puff of air and a blinking response and a weak connection between a sound (e.g., a metronome) and the blinking response. But, if both networks are stimulated at the same time, the link between the sound and the blinking response would be strengthened. Over repeated conditioning trials, this connection would become strong enough that the sound itself would trigger an
eyeblink (see Figure 6.3 ).
Figure 6.3 Conditioning and Synapses During conditioning, weak synapses fire at the same time as related strong synapses. The simultaneous activity strengthens the connections in the weaker
synapse. Source: Carlson, Neil R., Psychology Of Behavior, 11th ed., Copyright © 2013, pp. 29, 72. Reprinted and electronically
reproduced by permission of Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.
When reading these examples, it’s quite easy to think of conditioning as something unrelated to your life. Not many of us undergo eyeblink conditioning. But these principles still apply to your everyday existence. For instance, most of you have received a needle at the doctor’s office. In this situation, the needle caused a response of pain. The doctor’s office itself did not harm you in any way. But, over time, you may start to feel scared whenever you enter the doctor’s office because it has been repeatedly paired with pain. What do you think the US, UR, CS, and CR would be in this situation? In this case, the needle (US) causes pain (UR). The office is the neutral stimulus (NS). Over time, the sights and sounds of the doctor’s office could be the CS, because it would trigger the CR (fear). Importantly, as you will read in the next section, the strength of these networks—and thus of the conditioning—will vary depending upon how often and how consistently the CS and the US appear together.
Module 6.1a Quiz:
Pavlov’s Dogs: Classical Conditioning of Salivation
Know . . . 1. The learned response to the conditioned stimulus is known as the
. A. unconditioned stimulus B. conditioned stimulus C. conditioned response D. unconditioned response
2. A once-neutral stimulus that elicits a conditioned response because it has a history of being paired with an unconditioned stimulus is known as a(n)
. A. unconditioned stimulus
B. conditioned stimulus C. conditioned response D. unconditioned response
Apply . . . 3. A dental drill can become an unpleasant stimulus, especially for people
who may have experienced pain while one was used on their teeth. In
this case, the pain elicited by the drill is a(n) . A. conditioned response B. unconditioned stimulus C. conditioned stimulus D. unconditioned response
Processes of Classical Conditioning
Although classically conditioned responses typically involve reflexive actions, there is still a great deal of flexibility in how long they will last and how specific they will be. Conditioned responses may be very strong and reliable, which is likely if the CS and the US have a long history of being paired together. Conditioned responding may diminish over time, or it may occur with new stimuli with which the response has never been paired. We now turn to some processes that account for the flexibility of classically conditioned responses.
Acquisition, Extinction, and Spontaneous
Recovery
Learning involves a change in behaviour due to experience, which can include
acquiring a new response. Acquisition is the initial phase of learning in which a response is established; thus, in classical conditioning, acquisition is the phase in which a neutral stimulus is repeatedly paired with the US. In Pavlov’s
experiment, the conditioned salivary response was acquired with numerous metronome–food pairings (see Figure 6.4 ). A critical part of acquisition is the predictability with which the CS and the US occur together. In Pavlov’s
experiment, conditioning either would not occur or would be very weak if food was delivered only sometimes (i.e., inconsistently) when the metronome sound occurred.
Figure 6.4 Acquisition, Extinction, and Spontaneous Recovery Acquisition of a conditioned response occurs over repeated pairings of the CS and the US. If the US no longer occurs, conditioned responding diminishes—a
process called extinction. Often, following a time interval in which the CS does not occur, conditioned responding rebounds when the CS is presented again—a
phenomenon called spontaneous recovery.
Of course, even if a conditioned response is fully acquired, there is no guarantee
it will persist forever. Extinction is the loss or weakening of a conditioned response when a conditioned stimulus and unconditioned stimulus no longer occur together. For the dogs in Pavlov’s experiment, if the sound of the metronome clicking is presented repeatedly and no food follows, then salivation
should occur less and less, until eventually it may not occur at all (Figure 6.4 ). This trend probably makes sense from a biological perspective: If the sound of the metronome is no longer a reliable predictor of food, then salivation becomes unnecessary. At the neural level, the rate of firing in brain areas related
to the learned association decreases over the course of extinction (Robleto et al., 2004). However, even after extinction occurs, a previously established conditioned response can return.
A number of studies have shown that classically conditioned behaviours that had disappeared due to extinction could quickly reappear if the CS was paired with the US again. This tendency suggests that the networks of brain areas related to
conditioning were preserved in some form (Schreurs, 1993; Schreurs et al., 1998). Additionally, some animals (and humans) show spontaneous recovery , or the reoccurrence of a previously extinguished conditioned response, typically after some time has passed since extinction. Pavlov and his assistants noticed that salivation would reappear when the dogs were later returned to the experimental testing room where acquisition and extinction trials had been conducted. The dogs would also salivate again in response to a
metronome clicking, albeit less so than at the end of acquisition (Figure 6.4 ). Why would salivation spontaneously return after the response had supposedly extinguished? One possibility is that extinction also involves learning something
new (Bouton, 1994). In this case, Pavlov’s dogs would be learning that the clicking of a metronome indicates that food will not appear. It is possible that spontaneous recovery is a case of the animal not being able to retrieve the memory of extinction and thus reverting back to the original memory, the
classically conditioned response (Bouton, 2002; Brooks et al., 1999).
Extinction and spontaneous recovery are evidence that classically conditioned responses can change once they are acquired. Further evidence of flexibility of conditioned responding can be seen in some other processes of classical conditioning, including generalization and discrimination.
Stimulus Generalization and Discrimination
Stimulus generalization is a process in which a response that originally occurred for a specific stimulus also occurs for different, though similar, stimuli. In Pavlov’s experiment, dogs salivated not just to the original sound (CS), but
also to very similar sounds (see Figure 6.5 ). At the cellular level, generalization may be explained, at least in part, by the Hebb rule discussed
above. When we perceive a stimulus, it activates not only our brain’s representation of that item, but also our representations of related items. Some of these additional representations (e.g., a sound that has a slightly higher or lower pitch than the conditioned stimulus) may become activated at the same time as the synapses involved in conditioned responses. If this did occur, according to the Hebb rule, the additional synapse would become strengthened and would therefore be more likely to fire along with the other cells in the future.
Figure 6.5 Stimulus Generalization and Discrimination A conditioned response may generalize to other similar stimuli. In this case, salivation occurs not just for the 1200-Hz tone used during conditioning, but for other tones as well. Discrimination learning has occurred when responding is elicited by the original training stimulus, but much less so, if at all, for other stimuli.
Generalization allows for flexibility in learned behaviours, although it is certainly
possible for behaviour to be too flexible. Salivating in response to any sound would be wasteful because not every sound correctly predicts food. Thus
Pavlov’s dogs also showed discrimination , which occurs when an organism learns to respond to one original stimulus but not to new stimuli that may be similar to the original stimulus. In salivary conditioning, the CS might be a 1200- hertz tone, which is the only sound that is paired with food. The experimenter might produce tones of 1100 or 1300 hertz as well, but not pair these with food.
This point is critical: If stimuli that are similar to the CS are presented without a US, then it becomes less likely that these stimuli will lead to stimulus generalization. Instead, these other tones would have their own memory
representation in the brain—in which they did not receive food. So, stimulus discrimination would occur if salivation was triggered by the target 1200-hertz tone, but was not triggered (or was triggered less) in response to the other tones
(Figure 6.5 ).
Module 6.1b Quiz:
Processes of Classical Conditioning
Know . . . 1. What is the reoccurrence of a previously extinguished conditioned
response, typically after some time has passed since extinction?
A. Extinction B. Spontaneous recovery C. Acquisition D. Discrimination
Understand . . . 2. In classical conditioning, the process during which a neutral stimulus
becomes a conditioned stimulus is known as . A. extinction B. spontaneous recovery C. acquisition D. discrimination
Apply . . . 3. Your dog barks every time a stranger’s car pulls into the driveway, but
not when you come home. Reacting to your car differently is a sign of
. A. discrimination B. generalization
C. spontaneous recovery D. acquisition
Applications of Classical Conditioning
Now that you are familiar with the basic processes of classical conditioning, we can begin to explore its many applications. Classical conditioning is a common phenomenon that applies to many different situations, including emotional learning, aversions to certain foods, advertising, and responses to drugs.
Conditioned Emotional Responses
Psychologists dating back to John Watson in the 1920s recognized that our
emotional responses could be influenced by classical conditioning (Paul & Blumenthal, 1989; Watson & Rayner, 1920). These conditioned emotional responses consist of emotional and physiological responses that develop to a specific object or situation. In one of the most diabolical studies in the history of psychology, Watson and Rayner conditioned an 11-month-old child known as Albert B. (also referred to as “Little Albert”) to fear white rats. When they first presented Albert with a white rat, he showed no fear, and even reached out for the animal. Later, while Albert was again in the vicinity of the rat, they startled him by striking a steel bar with a hammer. Watson and Rayner reported that Albert quickly associated the rat with the startling sound; the child soon showed a conditioned emotional response to the rat. In this situation, the US would be the loud noise. The UR would be the feeling of fear elicited by the loud noise. With repeated pairings of the loud noise and the white rat, the white rat—which preceded the onset of the loud noise—would start to trigger fear. In this case, the white rat became the CS and the fear it elicited became the CR. Little Albert not only developed a fear of rats; the emotional conditioning generalized to other white furry objects including a rabbit and a Santa Claus mask.
It should be pointed out that ethical standards in modern-day psychological research would not allow this type of experiment to take place. To make matters
worse, it appears that Watson and Rayner did not keep in touch with Little Albert to see if there were any lasting effects from the study. In fact, the fate of Little Albert has been shrouded in mystery for almost a century. One group of researchers examined hospital records and reported that Little Albert passed away as a result of a brain illness (i.e., for reasons unrelated to this study) at the
age of 5 (Beck et al., 2009; Fridlund et al., 2012). However, researchers at Grant MacEwan University in Edmonton found evidence suggesting that Little Albert actually lived a long and relatively happy life, although he was not
comfortable around furry animals such as dogs (Digdon et al., 2014). More detective work is necessary to address these competing claims. Ironically, in
1928, Watson published a book entitled Psychological Care of Infant and Child.
The Watson and Rayner procedure may seem artificial because it took place in a laboratory, but here is a more naturalistic example. Consider a boy who sees his neighbour’s cat. Not having a cat of his own, the child is very eager to pet the animal—perhaps a little too eager, because the cat reacts defensively and scratches his hand. The cat may become a CS for the boy, which elicits a fear response. Further, if generalization occurs, the boy might become afraid of all cats. Conditioned emotional responses like these offer a possible explanation for many phobias, which are intense, irrational fears of specific objects or situations
(discussed in detail in Module 15.2 ).
During the past two decades, researchers have made great strides in identifying the brain regions responsible for such conditioned emotional responses. When an organism learns a fear-related association such as a tone predicting the onset of a startling noise, activity occurs in the amygdala, a brain area related to fear
(LeDoux, 1995; Maren, 2001). If an organism learns to fear a particular location, such as learning that a certain cage is associated with an electrical shock, then context-related activity in the hippocampus will interact with fear-related activity
in the amygdala to produce contextual fear conditioning (Kim & Fanselow, 1992; Phillips & LeDoux, 1992). Importantly, the neural connections related to conditioned fear remain intact, even after extinction has occurred. Instead, other neurons suppress the activity of the brain areas related to the fear responses
(Marek et al., 2013). If the CS is paired with the US again, this suppression will be removed and the fear-conditioned response will quickly reappear.
Watson and Rayner generalized Albert’s fear of white rats to other furry, white objects. Shown here, Watson tests Albert’s reaction to a Santa Claus mask. Archives of the History of American Psychology, The Center for the History of Psychology—The University of Akron
Neuroimaging has been used to study the brain’s responses to fear conditioning in both clinical populations and in healthy control participants. For example, scientists have conducted some fascinating experiments on people diagnosed with psychopathy (the diagnosis of “psychopathy” is very similar to antisocial
personality disorder; see Module 15.2 ). People with this disorder are notorious for disregarding the feelings of others. In one study, a sample of people diagnosed with psychopathy looked at brief presentations of human faces (neutral stimuli) followed by a painful stimulus (the US). The painful stimulus
would obviously elicit a pain response (the UR). What should have happened is that over repeated pairings, participants would acquire a negative emotional reaction (the CR) to the faces (which are now the CS); but, this particular sample did not react this way. Instead, these individuals showed very little physiological arousal, their emotional brain centres remained quiet, and overall they did not seem to mind looking at pictures of faces that had been paired with pain (see Figure 6.6 ; Birbaumer et al., 2005). In contrast, people who showed no signs of psychopathy did not enjoy this experience. In fact, following several
pairings between CS and US, the control group showed increased physiological arousal and activity of the emotion centres of the brain, and understandably reported disliking the experience of the experiment.
Figure 6.6 Fear Conditioning and the Brain During fear conditioning, a neutral stimulus (NS) such as a tone or a picture of a human face is briefly presented, followed by an unconditioned stimulus (US), such as a mild electric shock. The result is a conditioned fear response to the CS. A procedure like this has been used to compare fear responses in people diagnosed with psychopathy with control participants. The brain images show that those with psychopathy (right image) showed very little response in their emotional brain circuitry when presented with the CS. In contrast, control participants showed strong activation in their emotional brain centres (left image)
(Birbaumer et al., 2005). Source: Courtesy of Dr. Herta Flor
Evolutionary Role for Fear Conditioning
A healthy fear response is important for survival, but not all situations or objects are equally dangerous. Snakes and heights probably elicit more fear and caution than butterflies or flowers. In fact, fearing snakes is very common, which makes
it tempting to conclude that we have an instinct to fear them. In reality, young primates (both human children and young monkeys, for example) tend to be quite curious about, or at least indifferent to, snakes, so this fear is most likely the product of learning rather than instinct.
Psychologists have conducted some ingenious experi ments to address how learning is involved in snake fear. For instance, photographs of snakes (the CS) were paired with a mild electric shock (the US). One unconditioned response that a shock elicits is increased palm sweat—known as the skin conductance response. This reaction, part of the fight-or-flight response generated by the
autonomic nervous system (Module 3.3 ), occurs when our bodies are aroused by a threatening or uncomfortable stimulus. Following several pairings between snake photos and shock in an experimental setting, the snake photos alone (the CS) elicited a strong increase in skin conductance response (the CR). For comparison, participants were also shown nonthreatening pictures of flowers, paired with the shock. Much less intense conditioned responding developed in response to pictures of flowers, even though the pictures had been
paired with the shock just as many times as the snake pictures had been paired
with the shock (Figure 6.7 ; Öhman & Mineka, 2001). Thus, it appears we are predisposed to acquire a fear of snakes, but not flowers.
Figure 6.7 Biologically Prepared Fear Physiological measures of fear are highest in response to photos of snakes after the photos are paired with an electric shock—even higher than the responses to photos of guns. Flowers—something that humans generally do not need to fear in nature—are least effective when it comes to conditioning fear responses.
This finding may not be too surprising, but what about other potentially dangerous objects such as guns? In modern times, guns are far more often associated with death or injury than snakes, and certainly flowers. When the researchers paired pictures of guns (the CS) with the shock (US), they found that conditioned arousal to guns among participants was less than that to snake photos, and comparable to that of harmless flowers. In addition, the conditioned arousal to snake photos proved longer lasting and slower to extinguish than the
conditioned responding to pictures of guns or flowers (Öhman & Mineka, 2001). However, before completely accepting this finding, it is important to point out that the participants in this study were from Sweden, a country that has relatively little gun violence. It is unclear whether similar results would be found in participants
who lived in a location where gun violence was more prevalent.
This caveat aside, given that guns and snakes both have the potential to be dangerous, why is it so much easier to learn a fear of snakes than a fear of guns? One possibility is that over time, humans have evolved a strong predisposition to fear an animal that has a long history of causing severe injury
or death (Cook et al., 1986; Öhman & Mineka, 2001). The survival advantage has gone to those who quickly learned to avoid animals such as snakes. The same is not true for flowers (which do not attack humans) or guns (which are relatively new in our species’ history). This evolutionary explanation is known as preparedness , the biological predisposition to rapidly learn a response to a particular class of stimuli (Seligman, 1971).
Conditioned Taste Aversions
Another example of an evolutionarily useful conditioned fear response comes from food aversions. Chances are there is a food that you cannot stand to even look at because it once made you ill. This new aversion isn’t due to chance; rather, your brain and body have linked the taste, sight, and smell of that food to the feeling of nausea. In this situation, the taste (and often the sight and smell) of the food or fluid serves as the CS. The US is whatever substance in the food or environment happened to make you sick (e.g., some sort of bacteria); this, in turn, leads to the actual sickness (the UR). Aversion is not simply a case of “feeling gross.” Instead, it involves both a feeling (and in some species, a facial
expression) of disgust and a withdrawal or avoidance response. When the CS and US are linked, the taste of the food or fluid soon produces aversion
responses (the CR), even in the absence of physical illness (see Figure 6.8 ). This acquired dislike or disgust for a food or drink because it was paired with illness is known as conditioned taste aversion (Garcia et al., 1966).
Figure 6.8 Conditioned Taste Aversions Classical conditioning can account for the development of taste aversions. Falling ill after eating a particular food can result in conditioned feelings of disgust as well as withdrawal responses when you are later re-exposed to the taste, smell, or texture of the food. Conditioned taste aversions are another example of conditioning occurring even though the UR and the CR are not identical responses.
Conditioned taste aversions may develop in a variety of ways, such as through illness associated with food poisoning, the flu, medical procedures, or excessive intoxication. Importantly, these conditioned aversions only occur for the flavour of a particular food rather than to other stimuli that may have been present when you became ill. For example, if you were listening to a particular song while you got sick from eating tainted spinach or a two-week-old tuna sandwich, your aversion would develop to the taste of spinach, but not to the song that was playing. Thus, humans (and many other animals) are biologically prepared to
associate food, but not sound, with illness (Garcia et al., 1966).
Neuroimaging studies provide us with additional insights into conditioned taste aversions. These studies show responses in brain areas related to disgust and
emotional arousal (Yamamoto, 2007) as well as in brainstem regions related to vomiting (Reilly & Bornovalova, 2005; Yamamoto & Fujimoto, 1991). Additionally, neurons in reward centres in the brain show altered patterns of
activity to the food associated with illness (Yamamoto et al., 1989). These different brain responses suggest that illness triggers a strong emotional response that causes the reward centres to update their representation of the illness-causing food, thus making that food less rewarding.
Although these studies may explain how some aspects of conditioned taste aversions are maintained, there are still some riddles associated with this phenomenon. For instance, the onset of symptoms from food poisoning may not occur until several hours have passed after the tainted food or beverage was consumed. As a consequence, the interval between tasting the food (CS) and feeling sick (UR) may be a matter of hours, whereas most conditioning happens only if the CS, US, and the UR occur very closely to each other in time. Another peculiarity is that taste aversions are learned very quickly—a single CS–US pairing leading to illness is typically sufficient. These special characteristics of taste aversions are extremely important for survival. The flexibility offered by a long window of time separating food (CS) and the illness (UR), as well as the requirement for only a single exposure, raises the chances of acquiring an important aversion to the offending substance.
One potential explanation for these characteristics involves the food stimuli themselves. Usually, a conditioned taste aversion develops to something we have ingested that has an unfamiliar flavour. Such flavours stick out when they are experienced for the first time and are therefore much easier to remember, even after considerable time has passed. In contrast, if you have eaten the same ham and Swiss cheese sandwich at lunch for years, and you become ill one afternoon after eating it, you will be less prone to develop a conditioned taste
aversion. This scenario can be explained by latent inhibition, which occurs
when frequent experience with a stimulus before it is paired with a US makes it less likely that conditioning will occur after a single episode of illness (Lubow & Moore, 1959).
Conditioned taste aversions are a naturally occurring experience. However, conditioned emotional responses are also being created by advertisers to influence our responses. As you will read in the next section, food is not the only stimulus that can make you feel sick.
Working the Scientific Literacy Model Conditioning and Negative Political Advertising
Some politicians have charisma; you want to like them and believe what they say. Barack Obama (2009–2017) was treated like a rock star when he travelled internationally. Justin Trudeau (2016–) also seems rather well liked. But not everyone has natural charisma. In these cases, politicians need to use advertising and carefully constructed “photo ops” to create emotional responses that can influence voting behaviours. In an ideal world, these advertisements would focus on issues and would highlight the candidates’ positive qualities. Unfortunately, the last few decades have seen a dramatic upsurge in a different form of advertising: negative attack ads. In a three-month period during the 2008 U.S. presidential election, Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama combined for 150,000
negative ads in “battleground states” (Nielsen Research, 2008). This type of advertisement relies on the principles of classical conditioning and, in the process, treats you, the voter, like one of Pavlov’s dogs.
What do we know about classical conditioning in negative political advertising? Negative political advertisements routinely include unflattering
images. In the next federal or provincial election, pay attention to the commercials that are sponsored by each party and you will notice a few tricks. First, many images of opponents will be black and white and of poor quality (grainy). This trick is designed to make viewers feel mildly frustrated when viewing the unclear photographs. Second, the images of the attacked politicians will include them expressing a negative emotion. In some, they will be yelling (angry faces trigger a physiological response in people). Others may show facial expressions that appear smug or that suggest the candidate feels contempt toward the person
they’re looking at (which, in this case, would appear to be you). The assumption underlying these attack ads is that if you pair a party leader with imagery that generates unpleasant emotions, then viewers will associate that leader with negative feelings and be less likely to vote for that party.
In this case, the CS would be the attacked politician. The US would be the negative imagery. The UR would be the negative emotional response to the imagery (or unflattering photograph). Eventually, the individuals who constructed the ad hope that simply seeing the attacked person will produce a negative emotional response (CR) along with the thought, “I will not vote for him or her.” The question is, “Does this work?”
How can science help explain the role of classical conditioning in negative political advertising? An attempt to use negative emotions to alter people’s opinions of political candidates is similar to a psychology research technique
known as evaluative conditioning. In an evaluative conditioning study, experimenters pair a stimulus (e.g., a shape) with either
positive or negative stimuli (e.g., an angry face; Murphy & Zajonc, 1993). The repeated association of a stimulus with an emotion leads participants to develop a positive or negative feeling toward that stimulus (depending on the emotional pairing;
see Figure 6.9 ). This is precisely what political strategists are
attempting to do when they show unpleasant pictures of an opponent and pair it with angry narrators and emotional labels.
Figure 6.9 Evaluative Conditioning
In evaluative conditioning, researchers pair an emotional image (e.g., an emotional face) with a previously neutral target image such as a Japanese symbol. The association that (sometimes) forms between the two images can influence participants’ later judgments of the target image, leading them to like (if paired with a happy face) or dislike (if paired with angry face) them more than if no conditioning had occurred. Political advertising sometimes uses similar, if less subtle, techniques.
REUTERS/Alamy Stock Photo
In the laboratory, evaluative conditioning works. This phenomenon has been found with visual, auditory, olfactory (smell), taste, and tactile (touch) stimuli. It has been used to alter
feelings toward objects ranging from snack foods (Lebens et al., 2011), to consumer brands (Walther & Grigoriadis, 2004), to novel shapes (Olson & Fazio, 2001). A number of studies have specifically attempted to use conditioning to create negative
attitudes toward products or behaviours (Moore et al., 1982; Zanna et al., 1970), a goal similar to the attack ads you see each election. For instance, Stuart and colleagues (1990) found that
associating a new brand of toothpaste with negative pictures decreased evaluations of that product. In all of these cases, the advertisers and sponsoring politicians are assuming that the viewer will associate the negative emotions (UR) with the ad’s target (CS) and that this will make the viewer more likely to select an alternative (i.e., the candidate sponsoring the attack ad). In the case of politics, this assumption makes sense—attack ads tend to be effective and are recalled better than other types of political
information (Fernandes, 2013).
Can we critically evaluate this information? A major question that arises from this research is whether producing a negative opinion of one option (be it a brand of toothpaste or a political candidate) automatically means that you also produce a positive opinion of the other option. Oftentimes, we can’t tell if the results are due to liking one option or disliking the other option. This question isn’t really an issue for U.S.-based studies, as there are only two parties in that country (for now). However, with five political parties running in the next federal election in Canada, there is a danger that attack ads might produce negative opinions of the target, but still not boost opinions of the party running the ads.
Recent research has examined who is actually influenced by these attack ads. In one U.S.-based study (none have been conducted in Canada), researchers found that negative ads had no effect on donations to political parties. They did, however,
increase voter turnout among partisans, people who already agreed with the views expressed in the ads (Barton et al., 2016). In other words, although the primary goal of attack ads might be to make undecided voters associate negative emotions with the target of the ads, the actual effect of the ads is to motivate people
who already had negative emotions to act on those emotions (i.e., to vote).
Of course, politicians also need to be careful not to overstep certain boundaries and inadvertently create sympathy for the target of the negative ads. In October 1993, the Progressive Conservative Party broadcast two television commercials that highlighted the partial facial paralysis of Liberal leader (and future Prime Minister) Jean Chrétien. One ad asked, “Is this a Prime Minister?” Another had a female narrator stating, “I personally would be embarrassed if he were to become the Prime Minister of Canada.” The goal of the commercials was not to attack Chrétien’s political credentials or experience, which far surpassed those of the other, less experienced, party leaders. Instead, the ads were designed to link the negative emotion associated with physical deformities, and any stigma associated with them, to the Liberal party so that people would feel uneasy about voting Liberal. It didn’t work: The public outcry in response to the commercials caused the Conservatives to withdraw the ads after only one day. Indeed, people who saw the ads were inclined to sympathize with Chrétien and feel anger toward Conservative
leader Kim Campbell (Haddock & Zanna, 1997). The Liberals won the election handily, with the Conservatives being reduced to two seats in the House of Commons.
Negative ads can backfire if the public views them as overly
personal or insensitive. Mocking Jean Chrétien’s facial paralysis led to a disastrous outcome for the Progressive Conservative party in the 1993 election. Allstar Picture Library/Alamy Stock Photo
Why is this relevant? Dozens of studies indicate that people are prone to a third-person effect whereby they assume that other people are more affected by advertising and mass media messages than they themselves
are (Cheng & Riffe, 2008; Perloff, 2002). Thus, there appears to be a disconnect between the power of negative advertising and people’s awareness of its effects. It is important to realize that conditioning often occurs without our conscious awareness. Our brains are designed to make associations; it’s how we learn. So, by becoming aware of how marketing companies and politicians are using classical conditioning to influence how you vote, you can try to reduce the effect of their manipulation. That way, when you cast your vote, it will hopefully be because of issues you care about and not because of conditioned emotional responses.
Incidentally, the type of evaluative conditioning that occurs with negative political advertising may also work with positive information if it is powerful enough. At the beginning of the 2015 federal election campaign, the Liberal Party was concerned that the much wealthier Conservatives would buy up all of the advertising time during sporting events. To prevent this, they booked some commercial time with sports networks just in case
the Blue Jays made the playoffs (Thibedeau, 2015). They did— and although they ended up losing in the second round, their dramatic first-round victory over the Texas Rangers brought the nation together. Millions of excited Jays fans (jumping up and down after José Bautista’s bat flip) got to see frequent commercials featuring Justin Trudeau.
Drug Tolerance and Conditioning
In addition to influencing overt behaviours such as salivating and emotional behaviours such as phobias, classical conditioning can influence how the body regulates its own responses to different stimuli. For example, classical conditioning can help explain some drug-related phenomena, such as cravings and tolerance. Cues that accompany drug use can become conditioned stimuli
that elicit cravings (Sinha, 2009). For example, a cigarette lighter, the smell of tobacco smoke, or the presence of another smoker can elicit cravings in people who smoke.
Conditioning can also influence drug tolerance, or a decreased reaction that
occurs with repeated use of the drug (Siegel et al., 2000). When a person takes a drug, his or her body attempts to metabolize that substance. Over time, the setting and paraphernalia associated with the drug-taking begin to serve as cues (a CS) that a drug (US) will soon be processed by the body (UR). As a result of this association, the physiological processes involved with metabolizing the drug will begin with the appearance of the CS rather than when the drug is actually consumed. In other words, because of conditioning, the body is already braced for the drug before the drug has been snorted, smoked, or injected. This response means that, over time, more of the drug will be needed to override these preparatory responses so that the desired effect can be obtained; this
change is referred to as conditioned drug tolerance.
This phenomenon can have fatal consequences for drug abusers. Shepard
Siegel (1984), a psychologist at McMaster University, conducted interviews with patients who were hospitalized for overdosing on heroin. Over the course of his interviews, a pattern among the patients emerged. Several individuals reported that they were in situations unlike those that typically preceded their heroin injections—for example, in a different environment or even using an injection site (i.e., part of the body) that differed from the usual ritual. As a result of these differences, there were fewer CSs present to trigger the CR, the body’s
metabolizing activity that braced (or prepared) the drug taker’s body for the arrival of the drug. Without this conditioned preparatory response, delivery of
even a normal dose of the drug can be lethal. This finding has been confirmed in animal studies: Siegel and his associates (1982) found that conditioned drug tolerance and overdosing can also occur with rats. When rats received heroin in an environment different from where they experienced the drug previously, mortality rates were double that of control rats that received the same dose of heroin in their normal surroundings (64% versus 32%).
The examples discussed in this module are only a few of the applications of
classical conditioning (Domjan et al., 2004). But, the fact that behaviours ranging from phobias, to voting preferences, to drug tolerance can be explained by classical conditioning shows us that Pavlov’s observations of his salivating dogs were really just a drop in the bucket.
Module 6.1c Quiz:
Applications of Classical Conditioning
Know . . . 1. Conditioning a response can take longer if the subject experiences the
conditioned stimulus repeatedly before it is actually paired with a US.
This phenomenon is known as . A. preparedness B. extinction C. latent inhibition D. acquisition
2. When a heroin user develops a routine, the needle can become the , whereas the body’s preparation for the drug in response to the presence of the needle is the .
A. CS; CR B. US; UR C. US; CR D. CS; US
Understand . . . 3. Why are humans biologically prepared to fear snakes and not guns?
A. Guns kill fewer people than do snakes. B. Guns are a more recent addition to our evolutionary history. C. Snakes are more predictable than guns. D. Guns are not a natural phenomenon, whereas snakes do occur in
nature.
Apply . . . 4. A television advertisement for beer shows young people at the beach
drinking and having fun. Based on classical conditioning principles, the advertisers are hoping you will buy their beer because the commercial elicits
A. a conditioned emotional response of pleasure. B. a conditioned emotional response of fear. C. humans’ natural preparedness toward alcohol consumption. D. a taste aversion to other companies’ beers.
Module 6.1 Summary
acquisition
classical conditioning (Pavlovian conditioning)
conditioned emotional response
conditioned response (CR)
conditioned stimulus (CS)
conditioned taste aversion
discrimination
extinction
Know . . . the key terminology involved in classical conditioning.6.1a
generalization
latent inhibition
learning
preparedness
spontaneous recovery
unconditioned response (UR)
unconditioned stimulus (US)
Acquisition of a conditioned response occurs with repeated pairings of the CS and the US. Once a response is acquired, it can be extinguished if the CS and the US no longer occur together. During extinction, the CR diminishes, although it may reappear under some circumstances. For example, if enough time passes following extinction, the CR may spontaneously recover when the organism encounters the CS again.
Not all stimuli have the same potential to become a strong CS. Responses to biologically relevant stimuli, such as snakes, are more easily conditioned than are responses to stimuli such as flowers or guns, for example. Similarly, avoidance of potentially harmful foods is critical to survival, so organisms can develop a conditioned taste aversion quickly (in a single trial) and even when ingestion and illness are separated by a relatively long time interval.
Apply Activity
Understand . . . how responses learned through classical conditioning can be acquired and lost.
6.1b
Understand . . . the role of biological and evolutionary factors in classical conditioning.
6.1c
Apply . . . the concepts and terms of classical conditioning to new examples.
6.1d
Read the three scenarios that follow and identify the conditioned stimulus (CS), the unconditioned stimulus (US), the conditioned response (CR), and the
unconditioned response (UR) in each case. (Hint: When you apply the terms CS, US, CR, and UR, a good strategy is to identify whether something is a stimulus (something that elicits) or a response (a behaviour). Next, identify whether the stimulus automatically elicits a response (the US) or does so only after being paired with a US (a CS). Finally, identify whether the response occurs in response to the US alone (the UR) or the CS alone (the CR).)
1. Cameron and Tia went to the prom together. During their last slow dance, the DJ played the theme song for the event. During the song, the couple kissed. Now, several years later, whenever Cameron and Tia hear the song, they feel a rush of excitement.
2. Harry has visited his eye doctor several times due to problems with his vision. One test involves blowing a puff of air into his eye. After repeated visits to the eye doctor, Harry starts blinking as soon as the doctor begins to prepare the instrument.
3. Sarah went to a new restaurant and experienced the most delicious meal she had ever tasted. The restaurant began advertising on the radio, and now every time an ad comes on, Sarah finds herself craving the meal she enjoyed so much.
Negative political advertising often uses a form of conditioning known as evaluative conditioning. Negative images, sounds, and/or statements are paired with images of the targeted candidate. The goal is to have viewers link negative emotions with the target. Research has found that this technique can be successful. But, if the images used are deemed cruel or inappropriate, it is possible that viewers will feel negative emotions toward the sponsor of the ad instead.
Analyze . . . the use of negative political advertising to condition emotional responses to candidates.
6.1e
Module 6.2 Operant Conditioning: Learning through Consequences
Mike Mergen/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Learning Objectives
Know . . . the key terminology associated with operant conditioning. Understand . . . the role that consequences play in increasing or decreasing behaviour. Understand . . . how schedules of reinforcement affect behaviour.
6.2a 6.2b
6.2c
Gambling is a multibillion-dollar industry in Canada. According to Statistics Canada, the net revenue from lotteries, video-lottery terminals (VLTs), and casinos was $13.74 billion in 2011. That’s an average of $515 per person. Given these huge sums, it is clear that some individuals are spending more than they should on this habit. Psychologists and government officials have invested a considerable amount of time into the development of prevention and treatment programs for gambling addictions. Although these programs have led to addiction rates levelling off in recent years, compulsive gambling is still a problem in Canada. So, what compels people to keep pulling the lever on a slot machine or pressing buttons on a VLT screen when logic would tell them to stop and go home?
Although the answer to this question is complicated (Hodgins et al., 2011), it is clear that reinforcement plays a role in these behaviours. As you will read in this module, rewarding a behaviour—which happens when someone wins money after pressing the button on a VLT—makes that behaviour more likely to occur again in the future. The effect is larger when the reward doesn’t happen every time and isn’t predictable— qualities that perfectly describe gambling. The machines aren’t the only ones having their buttons pushed.
Focus Questions
1. How do the consequences of our actions—such as winning or losing a bet—affect subsequent behaviour?
2. Many behaviours, including gambling, are reinforced only part of the time. How do the odds of being reinforced affect how often a behaviour occurs?
Apply . . . your knowledge of operant conditioning to examples. Analyze . . . the effectiveness of punishment on changing behaviour.
6.2d 6.2e
Very few of our behaviours are random. Instead, people tend to repeat actions that previously led to positive or rewarding outcomes. If you go to a new restaurant and like it, you will eat there again. Conversely, if a behaviour previously led to a negative outcome, people are less likely to perform that action again. If you go to a new restaurant and don’t enjoy the meal, then you will likely not eat there again. These types of stimulus-response relationships are known
as operant conditioning , a type of learning in which behaviour is influenced by consequences. The term operant is used because the individual operates on the environment before consequences can occur. In contrast to classical
conditioning, which typically affects reflexive responses, operant conditioning involves voluntary actions such as speaking or listening, starting and stopping an activity, and moving toward or away from something. Whether and when we engage in these types of behaviours depend on how our unique collection of previous experiences has influenced what we do and do not find rewarding.
Initially, the difference between classical and operant conditioning may seem unclear. One useful way of telling the difference is that in classical conditioning a
response is not required for a reward (or unconditioned stimulus) to be presented; to return to Pavlov’s dogs, meat powder was presented regardless of whether salivation occurred. In classical conditioning, learning has taken place if a conditioned response develops following pairings of the conditioned stimulus and the unconditioned stimulus. In other words, the dogs learned the association between the sound of a metronome and food (as shown by their salivation), but
they didn’t have to actually do anything. In operant conditioning, a response and a consequence are required for learning to take place. Without a response of
some kind, there can be no consequence. See Table 6.1 for a summary of differences between operant and classical conditioning.
Table 6.1 Major Differences between Classical and Operant Conditioning
Classical Conditioning Operant Conditioning
Target response is . . . Automatic Voluntary
Reinforcement is . . . Present regardless of whether a
response occurs
A consequence of the
behaviour
Behaviour mostly
depends on . . .
Reflexive and physiological
responses
Skeletal muscles
Basic Principles of Operant Conditioning
The concept of contingency is important to understanding operant conditioning; it simply means that a consequence depends upon an action. Earning good grades is generally contingent upon studying effectively. Excelling at athletics is contingent upon training and practice. The consequences of a particular
behaviour can be either reinforcing or punishing (see Figure 6.10 ).
Figure 6.10 Reinforcement and Punishment The key distinction between reinforcement and punishment is that reinforcers, no matter what they are, increase behaviour. Punishment involves a decrease in behaviour, regardless of what the specific punisher may be. Thus both reinforcement and punishment are defined based on their effects on behaviour.
Reinforcement and Punishment
Reinforcement is a process in which an event or reward that follows a response increases the likelihood of that response occurring again. We can trace the scientific study of reinforcement’s effects on behaviour back to Edward Thorndike, who conducted experiments in which he measured the time it took
cats to learn how to escape from puzzle boxes (see Figure 6.11 ). Thorndike (1905) observed that over repeated trials, cats were able to escape more rapidly because they learned which responses worked (such as pressing a pedal on the
floor of the box). From his experiments, Thorndike proposed the law of effect —the idea that responses followed by satisfaction will occur again in the same situation whereas those that are not followed by satisfaction become less likely. In this definition, “satisfaction” implies either that the animal’s desired goal was achieved (e.g., escaping the puzzle box) or it received some form of reward for the behaviour (e.g., food).
Figure 6.11 Thorndike’s Puzzle Box and the Law of Effect (a) Thorndike conducted experiments in which cats learned an operant response that was reinforced with escape from the box and access to a food reward. (b) Over repeated trials, the cats took progressively less time to escape, as shown in this learning curve.
Within a few decades of the publication of Thorndike’s work, the famous behaviourist B. F. Skinner began conducting his own studies on the systematic relationship between reinforcement and behaviour. Although operant conditioning can explain many human behaviours, most of its basic principles stem from laboratory studies conducted on nonhuman species such as pigeons
or rats, which were placed in an apparatus such as the one pictured in Figure 6.12 . These operant chambers, sometimes referred to as Skinner boxes, include a lever or key that the subject can manipulate. Pushing the lever may result in the delivery of a reinforcer such as food. In operant conditioning terms, a reinforcer is a stimulus that is contingent upon a response and that increases the probability of that response occurring again. (So, a reinforcer would be a stimulus like food, whereas reinforcement would be the changes in the frequency
of a behaviour like lever-pressing that occur as a result of the food reward.) Researchers use machinery such as operant chambers to help them control and quantify learning. Specifically, researchers record an animal’s rate of responding over time (a measure of learning), and typically set a criterion for the number of responses that must be made before a reinforcer becomes available. As you will read later in this module, animals and humans are quite sensitive to how many responses they must make, or how long they must wait, in order to receive a reward.
Figure 6.12 An Operant Chamber The operant chamber is a standard laboratory apparatus for studying operant conditioning. The rat can press the lever to receive a reinforcer such as food or water. The lights can be used to indicate when lever pressing will be rewarded. The recording device measures cumulative responses (lever presses) over time.
Source: Lilienfeld, Scott O.; Lynn, Steven J; Namy, Laura L.; Woolf, Nancy J., Psychology: From Inquiry to Understanding,
2nd Ed., © 2011. Reprinted and electronically reproduced by permission of Pearson Education, Inc., New York, NY.
The discussion thus far has focused on how reinforcement can lead to increased responding; but, decreased responding is also a possible outcome of an
encounter with a stimulus. Punishment is a process that decreases the future probability of a response. Thus, a punisher is a stimulus that is contingent upon a response, and that results in a decrease in behaviour. Like reinforcers, punishers are defined not based on the stimuli themselves, but rather on their effects on behaviour. In all cases, a punisher—be it yelling, losing money, or going to jail—will make it less likely that a particular response will occur again.
Positive and Negative Reinforcement and
Punishment
Thus far, we have differentiated between reinforcement (when a response increases the likelihood that a behaviour will occur again) and punishment (when a response decreases the likelihood that a behaviour will occur again). In both of these cases, it is natural to think of the responses as something that is added to the situation. For instance, a behaviour could be reinforced by giving the animal food. Or, it could be punished by shocking the animal. But, both reinforcement
and punishment can be accomplished by removing a stimulus as well. In the descriptions that follow, try to remember the following four terms as they are used in operant conditioning:
Reinforcement: this increases the chances of a behaviour occurring again Punishment: this decreases the chances of a behaviour occurring again Positive: this means that a stimulus is added to a situation; positive can refer to reinforcement or punishment
Negative: this means that a stimulus is removed from a situation; negative can refer to reinforcement or punishment
These terms can be combined to produce four different subtypes of operant
conditioning. For instance, a response can be strengthened because it brings a
reward. This form of reinforcement, positive reinforcement , is the strengthening of behaviour after potential reinforcers such as praise, money, or nourishment follow that behaviour (see Table 6.2 ). For example, if you laugh at your professor’s jokes, the praise will serve as a reward; this will increase the likelihood that your professor will tell more jokes. (Remember: the “positive” in
positive reinforcement indicates the addition of a reward.) Positive reinforcement can be a highly effective method of rewarding desired behaviours among humans and other species.
Table 6.2 Distinguishing Types of Reinforcement and Punishment
Consequence Effect on
Behaviour
Example
Positive
reinforcement
Stimulus is
added or
increased.
Increases
the
response
A child gets an allowance for making
her bed, so she is likely to do it again
in the future.
Negative
reinforcement
Stimulus is
removed or
decreased.
Increases
the
response
The rain no longer falls on you after
opening your umbrella, so you are
likely to do it again in the future.
Positive
punishment
Stimulus is
added or
increased.
Decreases
the
response
A pet owner scolds his dog for
jumping up on a house guest, and
now the dog is less likely to do it
again.
Negative
punishment
Stimulus is
removed or
decreased.
Decreases
the
response
A parent takes away TV privileges to
stop the children from fighting.
Behaviour can also be reinforced by the removal of something that is unpleasant.
This form of reinforcement, negative reinforcement , involves the
strengthening of a behaviour because it removes or diminishes a stimulus (Table 6.2 ). For instance, taking aspirin is negatively reinforced because doing so removes a painful headache. Similarly, studying in order to prevent nagging from parents is also a form of reinforcement as the behaviour, studying, will increase.
Negative reinforcement is a concept that students frequently find confusing because it seems unusual that something aversive could be involved in the context of reinforcement. Recall that reinforcement (whether positive or negative) always involves an increase in the strength or frequency of responding. Also remember that the term “positive” in this context simply means that a stimulus is introduced or increased, whereas the term “negative” means that a stimulus has been reduced or avoided.
But, not all types of negative reinforcement are the same; in fact, negative
reinforcement can be further classified into two subcategories. Avoidance learning is a specific type of negative reinforcement that removes the possibility that a stimulus will occur. Examples of avoidance learning include leaving a sporting event early to avoid crowds and traffic congestion, and paying bills on time to avoid late fees. In these cases, negative situations are avoided. Escape learning , on the other hand, occurs if a response removes a stimulus that is already present. Covering your ears upon hearing overwhelmingly loud music is one example. You cannot avoid the music, because it is already present, so you perform a specific behaviour (covering your ears) to escape the aversive stimulus instead. The responses of paying bills on time to avoid late fees and covering your ears to escape loud music both increase in frequency because they have effectively prevented or removed the aversive stimuli.
In the laboratory, operant chambers such as the one pictured in Figure 6.12 often come equipped with a grid metal floor that can be used to deliver a mild electric shock; responses that remove (escape learning) or prevent (avoidance learning) the shock are negatively reinforced. This highly controlled environment allows researchers to carefully monitor all aspects of an animal’s environment while investigating the different contingencies that will cause a behaviour to increase or decrease in frequency.
As with reinforcement, various types of punishment are possible. Positive punishment is a process in which a behaviour decreases in frequency because it was followed by a particular, usually unpleasant, stimulus (Table 6.2 ). For example, some cat owners use a spray bottle to squirt water when the cat hops on the kitchen counter or scratches the furniture. Remember that the term “positive” simply means that a stimulus is added to the situation (i.e., no one is claiming that spraying a cat with water is an emotionally positive experience). In these cases, the stimuli are punishers because they decrease the frequency of a behaviour.
Finally, negative punishment occurs when a behaviour decreases because it removes or diminishes a particular stimulus (Table 6.2 ). Withholding someone’s privileges as a result of an undesirable behaviour is an example of negative punishment. A parent who “grounds” a child does so because this action removes something of value to the child. If effective, the outcome of the grounding will be to decrease the behaviour that got the child into trouble.
Shaping
Although these different forms of reinforcement and punishment make sense in theory, researchers (and parents) have an additional challenge: How do you get animals (or children) to perform the behaviour that you want to reinforce? Rats placed in operant chambers do not automatically go straight for the lever and begin pressing it to obtain food rewards. Instead, they must first learn that lever pressing accomplishes something. Getting a rat to press a lever can be done by
reinforcing behaviours that approximate (or lead up to) lever pressing, such as standing up, facing the lever, standing while facing the lever, placing paws upon
the lever, and pressing downward. This process of reinforcing successive approximations of a specific operant response is known as shaping . Shaping is done in a step-by-step fashion until the desired response—in this case, lever pressing—is learned. These techniques can also be used to help people develop
specific skill sets (e.g., toilet training). A similar process, chaining, involves linking together two or more shaped behaviours into a more complex action or sequence of actions. When you see an animal “acting” in a movie, its behaviours were almost certainly learned through lengthy shaping and chaining procedures.
Applications of shaping. Reinforcement can be used to shape complex chains of behaviour in animals and humans. (Later attempts to teach the cat to use a bidet were less successful.) Bork/Shutterstock
Applying Operant Conditioning
It is important to remember that although most studies of operant learning have involved animals, the principles derived from these studies apply to humans as well. In fact, they are found in many different areas of our lives ranging from work and school to interpersonal relationships. For example, the operant conditioning principles that we’ve reviewed thus far serve as the basis for an educational
method called applied behaviour analysis (ABA), which involves using close
observation, prompting, and reinforcement to teach behaviours, often to people who experience difficulties and challenges owing to a developmental condition such as autism (Granpeesheh et al., 2009). People with autism are typically nonresponsive to normal social cues from a very early age. This impairment can lead to a deficit in developing many skills, ranging from basic, everyday ones to complex skills such as language. For example, explaining how to clear dishes from the dinner table to a child with autism could prove difficult. Psychologists who specialize in ABA often shape the desired behaviour using prompts (such as asking the child to stand up, gather silverware, stack plates, and so on) and verbal rewards as each step is completed. These and more elaborate ABA techniques can be used to shape a remarkable variety of behaviours to improve the independence and quality of life for people with autism.
Module 6.2a Quiz:
Principles of Operant Conditioning
Know . . . 1. removes the immediate effects of an aversive stimulus, whereas
removes the possibility of an aversive stimulus from occurring in the first place.
A. Avoidance learning; escape learning B. Positive reinforcement; positive punishment C. Negative reinforcement; negative punishment D. Escape learning; avoidance learning
Understand . . . 2. When children misbehave, they are sometimes told to go to their room.
As a result, they no longer get to play with their friends or siblings. How does this consequence affect children’s behaviour?
A. It adds a stimulus in order to decrease bad behaviour. B. It takes away a stimulus in order to decrease bad behaviour. C. It adds a stimulus in order to increase bad behaviour. D. It takes away a stimulus in order to increase bad behaviour.
Apply . . . 3. Lucy hands all of her homework in to her psychology professor on time
because she does not want to lose points for late work. This is an
example of . A. negative reinforcement B. positive reinforcement C. negative punishment D. positive punishment
Processes of Operant Conditioning
In the previous section, you read about how the frequency of a behaviour can be increased (reinforcement) or decreased (punishment) by a number of different stimuli or responses. The obvious question, then, is why do some stimuli affect behaviour while others have no influence whatsoever? Is there a biological explanation for this difference?
Primary and Secondary Reinforcers
Reinforcers can come in two main forms. Primary reinforcers consist of reinforcing stimuli that satisfy basic motivational needs—needs that affect an individual’s ability to survive (and, if possible, reproduce). Examples of these inherently reinforcing stimuli include food, water, shelter, and sexual contact. In
contrast, secondary reinforcers consist of stimuli that acquire their reinforcing effects only after we learn that they have value. Money and Facebook “likes” are both examples of secondary reinforcers. They are more abstract and
do not directly influence survival-related behaviours.
Both primary and secondary reinforcers satisfy our drives, but what underlies the motivation to seek out these reinforcers? The answer is complex, but research
points to a specific brain circuit including a structure called the nucleus accumbens (see Figure 6.13 ). The nucleus accumbens becomes activated during the processing of all kinds of rewards, including primary ones such as
eating and having sex, as well as “artificial” rewards such as using cocaine and smoking a cigarette. Variations in this area might also account for why individuals differ so much in their drive for reinforcers. For example, scientists have discovered that people who are prone to risky behaviours such as gambling and alcohol abuse are more likely to have inherited particular copies of genes that code for dopamine and other reward-based chemicals in the brain
(Comings & Blum, 2000). Researchers have also found that individuals who are impulsive, and therefore vulnerable to gambling and drug abuse, release more dopamine in brain areas related to reward, and have trouble removing dopamine
from the synapses in these areas (Buckholtz et al., 2010).
Figure 6.13 Reward Processing in the Brain The nucleus accumbens is one of the brain’s primary reward centres.
Animals pressing levers in operant chambers to receive rewards may seem artificial. However, if you look around you will see that our environment is full of devices that influence our operant responses. Top: RisingStar/Alamy Stock Photo; bottom: Richard Goldberg/Shutterstock
Secondary reinforcers also trigger the release of dopamine in reward areas of the brain. A number of neuroimaging experiments have shown that monetary
rewards cause dopamine to be released in parts of the basal ganglia (Elliott et al., 2000) as well as in the medial regions of the frontal lobes (Knutson et al.,
2003). Some of these areas directly overlap with those involved with primary reinforcers (Valentin & O’Doherty, 2009).
How can dopamine be related to operant conditioning? When a behaviour is
rewarded for the first time, dopamine is released (Schultz & Dickinson, 2000); this reinforces these new, reward-producing behaviours so that they will be
performed again (Morris et al., 2006; Schultz, 1998). These dopamine- releasing neurons in the nucleus accumbens and surrounding areas help maintain a record of which behaviours are, and are not, associated with a reward. Interestingly, these neurons alter their rate of firing when you have to update your understanding of which actions lead to rewards; so, they are
involved with learning new behaviour–reward associations as well as with reinforcement itself.
Discrimination and Generalization
Once a response has been learned, the individual may soon learn that reinforcement or punishment will occur under only certain conditions and circumstances. A pigeon in an operant chamber may learn that pecking is reinforced only when the chamber’s light is switched on, so there is no need to continue pecking when the light is turned off. This illustrates the concept of a discriminative stimulus —a cue or event that indicates that a response, if made, will be reinforced. Our lives are filled with discriminative stimuli. Before we pour a cup of coffee, we might check whether the light on the coffee maker is on —a discriminative stimulus that tells us the beverage will be hot and, presumably, reinforcing. There are also numerous social examples of discriminative stimuli. For instance, you might only ask to borrow your parents’ car when they show signs of being in a good mood. In this case, your parents’ mood (smiling, laughing, etc.) will dictate whether you perform a behaviour (asking to borrow the car). Discriminative stimuli demonstrate that we (and animal subjects) can use cues from our environment to help us decide whether to perform a conditioned behaviour.
The idea of a discriminative stimulus should not be confused with the concept of
discrimination. Discrimination occurs when an organism learns to respond to
one original stimulus but not to new stimuli that may be similar to the original stimulus. For example, a pigeon may learn that he will receive a reward if he pecks at a key after a 1000-Hz tone, but not if he performs the same action following a 2000-Hz tone. As a result, he won’t peck at the key after a 2000-Hz tone. Or, to extend our earlier example, you may quickly learn that your father will lend you the car whereas your mother will not. In this case, the process of discrimination would lead you to perform a behaviour (asking to borrow the car) when you are with your father but not when you are with your mother.
In contrast to discrimination, generalization takes place when an operant response occurs in response to a new stimulus that is similar to the stimulus present during original learning. In this case, a pigeon who learned to peck a key after hearing a 1000-Hz tone may attempt to peck the key whenever any tone is presented. If petting a neighbour’s border collie (a type of dog) led to a child laughing and playing with the animal, then he might be more likely to pet other dogs or even other furry animals. In this instance, a specific reinforcement
related to an action (petting a specific dog) led to a similar behaviour (petting) occurring in other instances (petting other dogs).
If you’ve noticed similarities between discrimination and generalization in operant
conditioning and the same processes in classical conditioning (see Module 6.1 ), you are not mistaken. The same general logic underlies these concepts in both types of conditioning. However, while discrimination and generalization in classical conditioning were due to the strengthening of synapses as a result of simultaneous firing, in operant conditioning, the mechanism appears to be dopamine-secreting neurons.
Delayed Reinforcement and Extinction
The focus of this module thus far has been on behavioural and biological responses to reinforcement and punishment. In most studies exploring these responses, the reward or punishment occurred immediately following the
behaviour. This allows individuals to predict when a reward will occur (Schultz & Dickinson, 2000). But, you know from your own life that rewards are not always immediate. What happens if the reward is delayed, or doesn’t occur at all? As
early as 1911, Thorndike (the cat imprisoner) noted that reinforcement was more effective if there was very little time between the action and the consequence. Indeed, in a study with pigeons, researchers found that the frequency of responses (pecking a button) decreased as the amount of time between the
pecking and the reward (a food pellet) increased (Chung & Herrnstein, 1967). Interestingly, neuroscientists have found that neural activity decreases during this time as well. In fact, delays of as little as half a second decrease the amount
of neural activity in dopamine-releasing neurons (Hollerman & Schultz, 1996).
This effect of delayed reinforcement influences a number of human behaviours as well. For instance, drugs that have their effect (i.e., produce their rewarding feeling) soon after they are taken are generally more addictive than drugs whose effects occur several minutes or hours after being taken. This difference is due, in part, to the ease with which one can mentally associate the action of taking the drug with reinforcement from the drug (the consequence).
Sometimes, however, a reinforcer is not just delayed; it doesn’t occur at all. A pigeon may find that pressing a key in its operant chamber no longer leads to a food reward. You may find that your parents no longer let you borrow the car no matter how nicely you ask. Although both you and the pigeon may persist in your behaviour for a while, eventually you’ll stop. This change is known as extinction , the weakening of an operant response when reinforcement is no longer available. If you lose your Internet connection, for example, you will probably stop trying to refresh your web browser because there is no reinforcement for doing so—the behaviour will no longer be performed. Extinction, like most of the observable behaviours you’ve read about in this module, is related to dopamine. If you expect a reward for your behaviour and
none comes, the amount of dopamine being released decreases (Schultz, 1998). Dopamine release will increase again when there is a new behaviour– reward relationship to learn.
Injecting drugs allows them to enter the bloodstream and therefore the brain more quickly than if they are taken orally. This is one reason why injected drugs are often more addictive than pills. Victoria M/Fotolia
Table 6.3 differentiates among the processes of extinction, generalization, and discrimination in classical and operant conditioning.
Table 6.3 Comparing Discrimination, Generalization, and Extinction in Classical and Operant Conditioning
Process Classical Conditioning Operant Conditioning
Discrimination A CR does not occur in
response to a different CS
that resembles the original
CS.
There is no response to a stimulus
that resembles the original
discriminative stimulus used during
learning.
Generalization A different CS that
resembles the original CS
used during acquisition
elicits a CR.
Responding occurs to a stimulus that
resembles the original discriminative
stimulus used during learning.
Extinction A CS is presented without a
US until the CR no longer
occurs.
Responding gradually ceases if
reinforcement is no longer available.
Reward Devaluation
In all of these examples of operant conditioning, the value of the reinforcement remained the same. But, if you think about your own life it quickly becomes apparent that this is not always the case. Food is incredibly rewarding when you are hungry but becomes less so after you have eaten a large meal. Similarly, $100 may seem like a lot of money to a starving student, but would seem less important to a doctor with a high income. If a behaviour is more likely to occur because of reward, what happens when the reward becomes less rewarding?
Scientists have found that behaviours do change when the reinforcer loses some
of its appeal (Colwill & Rescorla, 1985, 1990). In a typical experiment, rats are trained to press two different levers, each associated with a different reward (e.g., two different rewarding tastes). If the experimenters pre-feed the animal with one of these two tastes, they will crave it less than the other; in other words, its reward will be devalued compared to the other taste. Researchers consistently find a decrease in the response rate for the “devalued” reward, whereas the other reward remains largely unaffected.
Reward devaluation can also occur by making one of the rewards less appealing. In this version of reward devaluation, one of the reinforcing tastes is paired with a toxin that made the rats feel ill; this obviously reduces its value! (Ideally, this pairing would occur outside of the operant chamber so that the toxin didn’t serve as a positive punishment.) The rats would then have the choice of two levers to press, one associated with a rewarding taste and the other associated with the taste that is now less rewarding than before. When these rats were later given the opportunity to choose between the two operant learning tasks, they showed a strong preference for the task whose reward had not been
devalued (Colwill & Rescorla, 1985, 1990).
Module 6.2b Quiz:
Processes of Operant Conditioning
Know . . . 1. A basic need such as food may be used as a reinforcer,
whereas a stimulus whose value must be learned is a reinforcer.
A. primary; continuous B. secondary; shaping C. primary; secondary D. continuous; secondary
Understand . . . 2. The difference between a discriminative stimuli and discrimination (as it
applies to operant conditioning) is that
A. discrimination tells you when behaviours could be reinforced whereas discriminative stimuli involve an animal responding to some stimuli but not others.
B. discriminative stimuli are used only in animal research (which involve simple cues) where discrimination occurs in psychological studies involving human participants.
C. discriminative stimuli can only affect behaviour after the process of discrimination has taken place.
D. a discriminative stimulus tells you when behaviours could be reinforced whereas discrimination involves responding to some stimuli but not others.
Apply . . . 3. Jack’s mother rewarded him for cleaning his messy room by baking him
cookies. As a result, Jack cleaned his room every week. However, after few months, Jack’s mother stopped rewarding his cleaning behaviour. As a result, Jack didn’t clean his room very often. This is an example of
.
A. extinction B. reward devaluation C. discrimination D. Skinner’s paradox
4. Jennifer used to love both tequila and vodka (although not mixed together). One night, she drank so much tequila that she felt sick. At a house party the next week, she avoided tequila and drank vodka instead.
This is an example of . A. extinction B. reward devaluation C. discrimination D. positive reinforcement
Reinforcement Schedules and Operant Conditioning
Think about the last time you did something nice for a friend. How did he or she respond? You may have received a hug. She may have said “Thanks!” and smiled. Regardless, you likely received some positive feedback that made you feel like your behaviour was worth repeating. Now think about the last time you played a sport or a video game. Not every shot would have hit the target, so your
behaviour wasn’t reinforced each time. But, it was likely reinforced some of the time. These real-world examples show you that some behaviours are reinforced more consistently than others. The question that interested psychologists was “How do these different patterns of reinforcement affect learning?
Schedules of Reinforcement
Operant conditioning occurs, intentionally or unintentionally, in many different areas of our lives. However, the exact timing of the action and reinforcement (or punishment) differs across situations. Typically, a given behaviour is rewarded
according to some kind of schedule. These schedules of reinforcement —rules that determine when reinforcement is available—can have a dramatic effect on both the learning and unlearning of responses (Ferster & Skinner, 1957). Reinforcement may be available at highly predictable or very irregular times. Also, reinforcement may be based on how often someone engages in a behaviour, or on the passage of time.
During continuous reinforcement , every response made results in reinforcement. As a result, learning initially occurs rapidly. For example, vending machines (should) deliver a snack every time the correct amount of money is deposited. In other situations, not every action will lead to reinforcement; we also encounter situations where reinforcement is available only some of the time. For example, phoning a friend may not always get you an actual person on the other
end of the call. In this kind of partial (intermittent) reinforcement , only a certain number of responses are rewarded, or a certain amount of time must pass before reinforcement is available. Four types of partial reinforcement schedules are possible (see Figure 6.14 ). These schedules have different effects on rates of responding.
Figure 6.14 Schedules of Reinforcement (a) Four types of reinforcement schedule are shown here: fixed ratio, variable ratio, fixed interval, and variable interval. Notice how each schedule differs based on when reinforcement is available (interval schedules) and on how many responses are required for reinforcement (ratio schedules). (b) These schedules of reinforcement affect responding in different ways. For example, notice the vigorous responding that is characteristic of the variable ratio schedule, as indicated by the steep upward trajectory of responding. (c) Real-world examples of the four types of reinforcement schedules. Photos: bottom left: Li jianbin/Imaginechina/AP Images; bottom centre left: Lightreign/Alamy Stock Photo; bottom centre right:
Andresr/ Shutterstock; bottom right: Bill Fehr/Shutterstock
Source: Lilienfeld, Scott O.; Lynn, Steven J; Namy, Laura L.; Woolf, Nancy J., Psychology: From Inquiry to Understanding,
2nd Ed., © 2011. Reprinted and electronically reproduced by permission of Pearson Education, Inc., New York, NY.
In the descriptions that follow, try to remember the following four terms as they are used in operant conditioning:
Ratio schedule: This means that the reinforcements are based on the amount of responding. Interval schedule: This means that the reinforcements are based on the amount of time between reinforcements, not the number of responses an animal (or human) makes.
Fixed schedule: This means that the schedule of reinforcement remains the same over time.
Variable schedule: This means that the schedule of reinforcement, although linked to an average (e.g., 10 lever presses or 10 seconds), varies from reinforcement to reinforcement.
Keeping these distinctions in mind should help you make sense of the four different reinforcement schedules discussed below.
In a fixed-ratio schedule , reinforcement is delivered after a specific number of responses have been completed. For example, a rat may be required to press
a lever 10 times to receive food. Similarly, a worker in a factory may get paid based on how many items she worked on (e.g., receiving $1 for every five items produced). In both cases, a certain number of responses is required before a reward is given.
In a variable-ratio schedule , the number of responses required to receive reinforcement varies according to an average. A VR5 (variable ratio with an average of five trials between reinforcements) could include trials that require seven lever presses for a reward to occur, followed by four, then six, then three, and so on. But, the average number of responses required to receive reinforcement would be five. Slot machines at casinos operate on variable-ratio reinforcement schedules. The odds are that the slot machine will not give anything back, but sometimes a player will win a small amount of money. Of course, hitting the jackpot is very infrequent. The variable nature of the reward structure for playing slot machines helps explain why responding on this schedule can be vigorous and persistent. Slot machines and other games of
chance hold out the possibility that at some point players will be rewarded, but it is unclear how many responses will be required before the reward occurs. The
fact that the reinforcement is due to the number of times a player responds promotes strong response levels (i.e., more button presses or lever pulls on a slot machine). In animal studies, variable-ratio schedules lead to the highest rate of responding of the four types of reinforcement schedules.
PSYCH@ Never Use Multiline Slot Machines When casinos first became popular in the middle of the 20th century, people who used slot machines would pull a lever. Wheels with different images or numbers would spin around; if the correct combination of numbers appeared, the player would win a reward (often paired with loud noises and hundreds of coins being dispensed). In modern casinos, the slot machines are computerized. This technology has allowed game designers to add a sinister trick to slot machines: It is now possible for players to bet on several lines (rows) of numbers rather than on just one.
These multiline slot machines therefore allow the player to make multiple bets on each “spin.” On the surface, this doesn’t seem alarming. But,
these machines are using operant conditioning against players. For each line that a player bets on, he or she has to insert money into the machine. So, if a player is betting on nine lines, he would put $9 into the machine. Then the machine “spins” so that the numbers and symbols on each line change. On many of these spins, the player will win, a result that is paired with rewarding celebratory sound effects as well as money. However, the “win” will be for less money than the original total bet (e.g.,
winning $5 after putting $9 into the machine). In other words, it is a loss that is disguised as a win (Dixon et al., 2010). In an interview, one game designer wrote, “[W]e give them a sense of winning but also continue to
accrue [their] credits” (Dow Schull, 2012, p. 121). Indeed, gambling researchers at the University of Waterloo have worked out the mathematics for these slot machines and found that players will double their bets only 20% of the time and will win 10x their initial bet (viewed as
a “big win” by gamblers) less than 1% of the time (Harrigan et al., 2014). And yet, due to the little rewards on each trial—the losses disguised as wins—gamblers continue to press the buttons. The house always wins in the long run.
Multiline video slot machines allow a player to bet on more than one line of numbers and symbols at a time. However, the small “wins” that players experience are often smaller than their overall losses.
frans lemmens/Alamy Stock Photo
In contrast to ratio schedules, interval schedules are based on the passage of
time, not the number of responses. A fixed-interval schedule reinforces the first response occurring after a set amount of time passes. If your psychology professor gives you an exam every four weeks, your reinforcement for studying
is on a fixed-interval schedule. In Figure 6.14 , notice how the fixed-interval schedule shows that responding drops off after each reinforcement is delivered (as indicated by the tick marks). However, responding increases because reinforcement is soon available again. This schedule may reflect how you devote time to studying for your next exam—studying time tends to decrease after an exam, and then builds up again as another test looms.
The final reinforcement schedule is the variable-interval schedule , in which the first response is reinforced following a variable amount of time. The time interval varies around an average. For example, if you were watching the nighttime sky during a meteor shower, you would be rewarded for looking upward at irregular times. A meteor may fall on average every 5 minutes, but there will be times of inactivity for a minute, 10 minutes, 8 minutes, and so on.
As you can see from Figure 6.14 , ratio schedules tend to generate relatively high rates of responding. This outcome makes sense in light of the fact that in ratio schedules, reinforcement is based on how often you engage in the behaviour (something you have some control over) versus how much time has passed (something you do not control). For example, looking up with greater
frequency does not cause more meteor activity because a variable-interval schedule is in effect. In contrast, a salesperson is on a variable-ratio schedule because approaching more customers increases the chances of making a sale.
One general characteristic of schedules of reinforcement is that partially reinforced responses tend to be very persistent. For example, although people are only intermittently reinforced for putting money into a slot machine, a high rate of responding is maintained and may not decrease until after a great many
losses in a row (or the individual runs out of money). The effect of partial
reinforcement on responding is especially evident during extinction. The partial reinforcement effect refers to a phenomenon in which organisms that have been conditioned under partial reinforcement resist extinction longer than those conditioned under continuous reinforcement. This effect is likely due to the fact that the individual is accustomed to not receiving reinforcement for every response; therefore, a lack of reinforcement is not surprising and does not alter the motivation to produce the response, even if reinforcement is no longer available. We see this effect in many situations ranging from gambling, to cheesy pick-up lines in bars, to the numerous superstitions developed by professional and amateur athletes.
Working the Scientific Literacy Model Reinforcement and Superstition
It is clear that reinforcement can appear in multiple forms and according to various schedules. What all forms have in common is the notion that the behaviour that brought about the reinforcement will be strengthened. But what happens if the organism is mistaken about what caused the reinforcement to occur—will it experience reinforcement anyway? This raises the topic of superstition.
What do we know about superstition and reinforcement? Reinforcement is often systematic and predictable. If it is not, then behaviour is eventually extinguished. In some cases, however, it is not perfectly clear what brings about the reinforcement. Imagine a baseball player who tries to be consistent in how he pitches. After a short losing streak, the pitcher suddenly wins a big game. If he is playing the same way, then what happened to change the outcome of the game? Did an alteration in his pre-game ritual lead to the victory? Humans the world over are prone to believing that some ritual or lucky charm
will somehow improve their chances of success or survival. Psychologists believe these superstitions can be explained by operant conditioning.
How can science explain superstition?
Decades ago, B. F. Skinner (1948) attempted to create superstitious behaviour in pigeons. Food was delivered every 15 seconds, regardless of what the pigeons were doing. Over time, the birds started engaging in “superstitious” behaviours. The pigeons repeated the behaviour occurring just before reinforcement, even if the behaviour was scratching, head- bobbing, or standing on one foot. A pigeon that happened to be turning in a counterclockwise direction when reinforcement was delivered repeated this seemingly senseless behaviour.
Humans are similarly superstitious. For example, in one laboratory study, psychologists constructed a doll that could spit
marbles (Wagner & Morris, 1987). Children were told that the doll would sometimes spit marbles at them and that these marbles could be collected and traded for toys. The marbles were ejected at random intervals, leading several of the children to develop superstitious behaviours such as sucking their thumbs or kissing the doll on the nose.
Psychologists have conducted controlled studies to see whether superstitious behaviours have any effect on performance outcomes. In one investigation, college students, 80% of whom believed in the idea of “good luck,” were asked to participate in a golf putting contest in which members of one group were told they were playing with “the lucky ball,” and others were told they would be using “the ball everyone has used so far.” Those who were told they were using the lucky ball performed significantly better than those who used the ball that was not blessed with
good luck (Damisch et al., 2010). These effects also occurred in other tasks, such as memory and anagram games, and
participants also showed better performance at tasks if allowed to bring a good luck charm.
Can we critically evaluate these findings? Superstitious beliefs, though irrational on the surface, may enhance individuals’ belief that they can perform successfully at a task. Sometimes these beliefs can even enhance performance, as the golf putting experiment revealed. These findings, however, are best applied to situations where the participant has some control over an outcome, such as taking an exam or playing a sport. People who spend a lot of time and money gambling are known to be quite superstitious, but it is important to distinguish between games of chance versus skill in this setting. “Success” at most gambling games is due entirely, or predominantly, to chance. Thus, the outcomes are immune to the superstitious beliefs of the players.
Superstitions are also prone to the confirmation bias—the tendency to seek out evidence in favour of your existing views and ignore inconsistent information—and the partial reinforcement effect discussed above. If an athlete believes that a superstitious behaviour leads to success, then he or she will
notice when the behaviour does lead to success. However, given that losing is generally part of being an athlete, there will be times when the behaviour is not reinforced. Given what you’ve read about the partial reinforcement effect, it is easy to see how a superstitious behaviour could be difficult to change. For instance, former NHL goaltender Patrick Roy was as famous for his many superstitions as he was for his playoff heroics. During every game he would (1) skate backwards toward his net before spinning around at the last minute (which made it appear smaller), (2) talk to his goalposts, (3) thank his goalposts when the puck hit one of them, and (4) avoid touching the blue line and red line when skating off the ice. Roy has the second-highest total of wins for NHL goalies and the most playoff wins in history
(151). He won the Stanley Cup four times and was the playoffs’s Most Valuable Player three times (an NHL record). But, in addition to his 702 reinforcers, he also lost over 400 games in his impressive career.
Why is this relevant? Between Skinner’s original work with pigeons, and more contemporary experiments with people, it appears that operant conditioning plays a role in the development of some superstitions. Perhaps you have a good luck charm or a ritual you must complete before a game or even before taking a test. Think about what brings you luck, and then try to identify why you believe in this relationship. Can you identify a specific instance when you were first reinforced for this behaviour? Then remember that the superstition is a form of reinforcement, a
linking of a behaviour and a response that is formed in your mind. Whether a superstition affects your performance is based on whether or not you allow it to.
Applying Punishment
People tend to be more sensitive to the unpleasantness of punishment than they are to the pleasures of reward. Psychologists have demonstrated this asymmetry in laboratory studies with university students who play a computerized game in which they can choose a response that can bring either a monetary reward or a monetary loss. It turns out that the participants found losing money to be about three times as punishing as being rewarded with money was pleasurable. In other words, losing $100 is three times more punishing than gaining $100 is
reinforcing (Rasmussen & Newland, 2008).
The use of punishment raises some ethical concerns—especially when it comes to physical means. A major issue that is debated all over the world is whether
corporal punishment (e.g., spanking) is acceptable to use with children. In fact, more than 20 countries, including Sweden, Austria, Finland, Denmark, and Israel, have banned the practice. It is technically legal to spank a child aged 2– 12 in Canada; in a contentious decision, the Supreme Court of Canada (in a 6–3
vote) upheld Section 43 of the Criminal Code allowing spanking (Supreme Court of Canada, 2004). Some parents use this tactic because it works: Spanking is generally a very effective punisher when it is used for immediately
stopping a behaviour (Gershoff, 2002). However, one reason so few psychologists advocate spanking is because it is associated with some major
side effects (Gershoff, 2002; Gershoff & Bitensky, 2007). In a recent review of this research published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, investigators at the University of Manitoba noted that spanking has been associated with poorer parent–child relationships, poorer mental health for both adults and children, delinquency in children, and increased chances of children
becoming victims or perpetrators of physical abuse in adulthood (Durrant & Ensom, 2012).
It is also important to note that, while punishment may suppress an unwanted behaviour temporarily, by itself it does not teach which behaviours are appropriate. As a general rule, punishment of any kind is most effective when
combined with reinforcement of an alternative, suitable response. Table 6.4 offers some general guidelines for maximizing the effects of punishment and minimizing negative side effects.
Table 6.4 Punishment Tends to Be Most Effective When Certain Principles Are Followed
Principle Description and Explanation
Severity Should be proportional to offence. A small fine is suitable for parking
illegally or littering, but inappropriate for someone who commits assault.
Initial
punishment
level
The initial level of punishment needs to be sufficiently strong to reduce
the likelihood of the offence occurring again.
Contiguity Punishment is most effective when it occurs immediately after the
behaviour. Many convicted criminals are not sentenced until many
months after they have committed an offence. Children are given
detention that may not begin until hours later. Long delays in
punishment are known to reduce its effectiveness.
Consistency Punishment should be administered consistently. A parent who only
occasionally punishes a teenager for breaking her curfew will probably
have less success in curbing the behaviour than a parent who uses
punishment consistently.
Show
alternatives
Punishment is more successful, and side effects are reduced, if the
individual is clear on how reinforcement can be obtained by engaging in
appropriate behaviours.
Are Classical and Operant Learning Distinct
Events?
It is tempting to think of behaviour as being due to either classical conditioning or operant conditioning. However, it is possible, even likely, that a complex behaviour is influenced by both types of learning, each influencing behaviour in slightly different ways. Consider gambling with video lottery terminals (VLTs), the topic of the opening story in this module. As discussed above, slot machines and VLTs use a variable-ratio schedule of reinforcement, a type of operant conditioning that leads to a high response rate. But, the flashy lights, the dinging sounds coming from the machine, and even the chair all serve as conditioned stimuli for the unconditioned response of excitement associated with gambling
(Dixon et al., 2014). So, classical conditioning produces an emotional response and operant conditioning maintains the behaviour. Given these forces, should we really be surprised that VLTs are so alluring to people, particular those prone to
problem gambling (Clarke et al., 2012; Nicki et al., 2007)?
Module 6.2c Quiz:
Reinforcement Schedules and Operant Conditioning
Know . . . 1. In a , the first response occurring after a set amount of time leads
to a reward.
A. fixed-ratio schedule B. variable-ratio schedule C. fixed-interval schedule D. variable-interval schedule
Understand . . . 2. Pete cannot seem to stop checking the change slots of vending
machines. Although he usually does not find any money, occasionally he finds a quarter. Despite the low levels of reinforcement, this behaviour is
likely to persist due to . A. escape learning B. the partial reinforcement effect C. positive punishment D. generalization
Apply . . . 3. Frederick trained his parrot to open the door to his cage by pecking at a
lever three times. Based on this description, which schedule of reinforcement would he most likely have used?
A. variable-interval B. variable-ratio C. fixed-interval D. fixed-ratio
Analyze . . . 4. Jeremy regularly spanks his children to decrease their misbehaviour.
Which statement is most accurate in regard to this type of corporal punishment?
A. Spanking is an effective method of punishment and should always be used.
B. Spanking can be an effective method of punishment but carries risks of additional negative outcomes.
C. Spanking is not an effective method of punishment, so it should never be used.
D. The effects of spanking have not been well researched, so it should not be used.
Module 6.2 Summary
applied behaviour analysis
avoidance learning
chaining
continuous reinforcement
discrimination
discriminative stimulus
escape learning
extinction
fixed-interval schedule
fixed-ratio schedule
generalization
law of effect
negative punishment
negative reinforcement
operant conditioning
Know . . . the key terminology associated with operant conditioning.6.2a
partial (intermittent) reinforcement
partial reinforcement effect
positive punishment
positive reinforcement
primary reinforcer
punisher
punishment
reinforcement
reinforcer
schedules of reinforcement
secondary reinforcer
shaping
variable-interval schedule
variable-ratio schedule
Positive and negative reinforcement increase the likelihood of a behaviour, whereas positive and negative punishment decrease the likelihood of a behaviour. Positive reinforcement and positive punishment involve adding a stimulus to the situation, whereas negative reinforcement and negative punishment involve removal of a stimulus.
Schedules of reinforcement can be fixed or variable, and can be based on
intervals (time) or ratios (the number of responses). As can be seen in Figure
Understand . . . the role that consequences play in increasing or decreasing behaviour.
6.2b
Understand . . . how schedules of reinforcement affect behaviour.6.2c
6.14 , variable-ratio schedules produce the most robust learning; reinforcement is linked to the animal’s (or human’s) response rather than to an amount of time, but the animal never knows how many responses will be necessary for a reward to occur. Variable-interval schedules lead to the slowest rate of learning.
The concepts of positive and negative reinforcement and punishment are often the most challenging when it comes to this material.
Apply Activity Read the following scenarios and determine whether positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment, or negative punishment explains the change in behaviour.
1. Bill is caught for cheating on multiple examinations. As a consequence, the school principal suspends him for a three-day period. Bill likes being at school and, when he returns from his suspension, he no longer cheats on exams. Which process explains the change in Bill’s behaviour? Why?
2. Ericka earns As in all of her math classes. Throughout her schooling, she finds that the personal and social rewards for excelling at math continue to motivate her. She eventually completes a graduate degree and teaches math. Which process explains her passion for math? Why?
3. Automobile makers install sound equipment that produces annoying sounds when a door is not shut properly, lights are left on, or a seat belt is not fastened. The purpose is to increase proper door shutting, turning off of lights, and seat belt fastening behaviour. Which process explains the behavioural changes these sounds are attempting to make?
4. Hernan bites his fingernails and cuticles to the point of bleeding and discomfort. To reduce this behaviour, he applies a terrible-tasting topical lotion to his fingertips and the behaviour stops. Which process explains Hernan’s behavioural change?
Apply . . . your knowledge of operant conditioning to examples.6.2d
Analyze . . . the effectiveness of punishment on changing6.2e
Many psychologists recommend that people rely on reinforcement to teach new or appropriate behaviours. The issue here is not that punishment does not work, but rather that there are some notable drawbacks to using punishment as a means to change behaviour. For example, punishment may teach individuals to engage in avoidance or aggression, rather than developing an appropriate alternative behaviour that can be reinforced.
behaviour.
Module 6.3 Cognitive and Observational Learning
Courtesy of Victoria Horner and the Chimpanzee Sanctuary and Wildlife Conservation Trust, Ngamba Island, Uganda
Learning Objectives
Know . . . the key terminology associated with cognitive and observational learning. Understand . . . the concept of latent learning and its relevance to cognitive aspects of learning. Apply . . . principles of observational learning outside of the laboratory. Analyze . . . the claim that viewing violent media increases violent behaviour.
6.3a
6.3b
6.3c 6.3d
Are you smarter than a chimpanzee? For years psychologists have asked this question, but in a more nuanced way. More specifically, they have tested the problem-solving and imitative abilities of chimpanzees and humans to help us better understand what sets us apart from, and what makes us similar to, other animals. Chimps and humans both acquire many behaviours from observing others, but imagine if you pitted a typical human preschooler against a chimpanzee. Who do you think would be the best at learning a new skill just by watching someone else perform it? Researchers Victoria Horner and Andrew Whiten asked this question by showing 3- and 4-year-old children how to retrieve a treat by opening a puzzle box, and then they demonstrated the task to chimpanzees as well. But there was one trick thrown in: As they demonstrated the process, the researchers added in some steps that were unnecessary to opening the box. The children and chimps both figured out how to open it, but the children imitated all the steps—even the unnecessary ones—while the chimps skipped the useless steps and
went straight for the treat (Horner & Whiten, 2005).
What can we conclude from these results? Maybe it is true that both humans and chimps are excellent imitators, although it appears the children imitated a little too well, while the chimps imitated in a smarter manner. Clearly, we both share a motivation to imitate—which is a complex cognitive ability and one of the keys to learning new skills.
Focus Questions
1. What role do cognitive factors play in learning? 2. Which processes are required for imitation to occur?
The first two modules of this chapter focused on relatively basic ways of learning.
Classical conditioning occurs through the formation of associations (Module 6.1 ), and operant conditioning involves changes in behaviour due to
rewarding or punishing consequences (Module 6.2 ). Both types of learning emphasize relationships between stimuli and responses and avoid making
reference to the thinking part of the learning process. However, since the 1950s, psychologists have recognized that cognitive processes such as thinking and remembering are useful to theories and explanations of how we learn.
Cognitive Perspectives on Learning
Cognitive psychologists have contributed a great deal to psychology’s understanding of learning. In some cases, they have presented a very different view from behaviourism by addressing unobservable mental phenomena. In other cases, their work has simply complemented behaviourism by integrating cognitive accounts into even the seemingly simplest of learned behaviours, such as classical and operant conditioning.
Latent Learning
Much of human learning involves absorbing information and then demonstrating what we have learned by performing a task, such as taking a quiz or exam. Learning, and reinforcement for learning, may not be expressed until there is an opportunity to do so. In other words, learning may be occurring even if there is no behavioural evidence of it taking place.
Psychologist Edward Tolman proposed that humans, and even rats, express latent learning —learning that is not immediately expressed by a response until the organism is reinforced for doing so. Tolman and Honzik (1930) demonstrated latent learning in rats running a maze (see Figure 6.15 ). The first group of rats could obtain food if they navigated the correct route through the maze. They were given 10 trials to figure out an efficient route to the end of the maze, where food was always waiting. A second group was allowed to explore the maze, but did not have food available at the other end until the 11th trial. A third group (a control) never received food while in the maze. It might seem that only the first group—the one that was reinforced on all trials—would learn how to
best shuttle from the start of the maze to the end. After all, it was the only group that was consistently reinforced. This is, in fact, what happened—at least for the first 10 trials. Tolman and Honzik discovered that rats that were finally rewarded on the 11th trial quickly performed as well as the rats that were rewarded on
every trial (see Figure 6.15 ). It appears that this second group of rats was learning after all, but only demonstrated their knowledge when they received reinforcement worthy of quickly running through the maze.
Figure 6.15 Learning without Reinforcement Tolman and Honzik (1930) placed rats in the start box and measured the number of errors they made in getting to the end box. Rats that were reinforced during the first 10 days of the experiment made fewer errors. Rats that were reinforced on day 11 immediately made far fewer errors, which indicated that they had learned some spatial details of the maze even though food reinforcement was not available during the first 10 trials for this group. Source: Ciccarelli, Saundra K.; White, J. Noland, Psychology: An Exploration, 1st ed., © 2010, p. 79, 81, 141. Reprinted and
Electronically reproduced by permission of Pearson Education, Inc., New York, NY.
Source: Adapted from “Degrees of Hunger, Reward and Non-Reward and Maze Learning in Rats” by E. C. Tolman & C. H.
Honzik, (1930), University of California Publications in Psychology, 4241–4256.
If you put yourself in the rat’s shoes—or perhaps paws would be more appropriate—you will realize that humans experience latent learning as well. Consider the layout of a university campus. In the first months of school, new students might wander around the campus to find different classrooms and perhaps the cafeteria, but they would probably leave entire buildings unexplored. Yet, if they were suddenly asked to meet someone in a specific building, they would likely be able to find that location without much problem (i.e., they would not wander aimlessly from building to building in a trial-and-error fashion as though investigating a new environment for the first time). The reason is that they would have formed an understanding of the general area, even though that knowledge wasn’t rewarded at the time. Tolman and Honzik assumed that this process held true for their rats, and they further hypothesized that rats possess a
cognitive map of their environment, much like our own cognitive map of our surroundings. Their classic study is important because it illustrates that humans (and rats) acquire information in the absence of immediate reinforcement and that we can use that information when circumstances allow.
It is important to point out that latent learning did not disprove the operant
learning research that highlighted the importance of reinforcement (Module 6.2 ). Instead, most of the controversy centred on the idea of cognitive maps and the statement that no reinforcement had occurred during the first 10 trials. Later research suggested that the rats may have been learning where different
parts of the maze were located in relation to each other rather than forming a complete map of the environment (Whishaw, 1991). Additionally, there is no guarantee that the rats didn’t find exploring the maze on the first 10 trials to be rewarding in some way, as rats are naturally curious about their environment. Because it is experimentally difficult, if not impossible, to answer some of these questions, much of the debate about the mechanisms underlying latent learning
remains unresolved (Jensen, 2006).
S-O-R Theory of Learning
Latent learning suggests that individuals engage in more “thinking” than is shown by operant conditioning studies. Instead, cognitive theories of learning suggest that an individual actively processes and analyzes information; this activity influences observable behaviours as well as our internal mental lives. Because of the essential role played by the individual, this early view of cognitive learning
was referred to as the S-O-R theory (stimulus-organism-response theory; Woodworth, 1929).
Stimulus–response (S–R) and S–O–R theorists both agreed that thinking took place; however, they disagreed about the content and causes of the thoughts. S–R psychologists (such as Thorndike) assumed that thoughts were based on the S–R contingencies that an organism had learned throughout its life; in other words, thinking was a form of behaviour. Individual differences in responding would therefore be explained by the different learning histories of the individuals. S–O–R psychologists, on the other hand, assumed that individual differences
were based on people’s (or animals’) cognitive interpretation of that situation—in other words, what that stimulus meant to them. In this view, the same stimulus in the same situation could theoretically produce different responses based on a variety of factors including an individual’s mood, fatigue, the presence of other organisms, and so on. For example, the same comment to two coworkers might lead to an angry response from one person and laughter from another. The
explanation for these differences is the O in the S–O–R theory; each person or organism will think about or interpret a situation in a slightly different way.
Module 6.3a Quiz:
Cognitive Perspectives on Learning
Know . . . 1. A theory of learning that highlights the role played by an individual’s
interpretation of a situation is (the)
A. classical conditioning theory. B. operant conditioning theory. C. stimulus-organism-response theory. D. individualist theory.
Understand . . . 2. Contrary to some early behaviourist views, suggests that
learning can occur without any immediate behavioural evidence.
A. latent learning B. operant conditioning C. classical conditioning D. desirable difficulties
Observational Learning
The first two modules in this chapter focused on aspects of learning that require direct experience. Pavlov’s dogs experienced the clicking sound of the metronome and the food one right after the other, and learning occurred. Rats in an operant chamber experienced the reinforcing consequences of pressing a lever, and learning occurred. However, not all learning requires direct experience, and this is a good thing. Can you imagine if surgeons had to learn by trial and error? Who on earth would volunteer to be the first patient?
Luckily, many species, including humans, are able to learn new skills and new
associations without directly experiencing them. Observational learning
involves changes in behaviour and knowledge that result from watching others. Humans have elaborate cultural customs and rituals that spread through observation. The cultural differences we find in dietary preferences, clothing
styles, athletic events, holiday rituals, music tastes, and so many other customs exist because of observational learning. Indeed, it is the primary way that adaptive behaviour spreads so rapidly within a population, even in nonhuman
species (Heyes & Galef, 1996). For example, cats that observe others being trained to leap over a hurdle to avoid a foot shock learn the same trick faster
than cats who did not observe this training (John et al., 1968). A less shocking example involves rats’ foraging behaviour. Before setting off in search of food, rats smell the breath of other rats. They will then search preferentially for food that matches the odour of their fellow rats’ breath. To humans, this practice may not seem very appealing—but for rats, using breath as a source of information about food may help them survive. By definition, a breathing rat is a living rat, so clearly the food the animal ate did not kill it. Living rats are worth copying. Human children are also very sensitive to social cues about what they should avoid. Curious as they may be, even young children will avoid food if they
witness their parents reacting with disgust toward it (Stevenson et al., 2010). However, for observational learning to occur, some key processes need to be in place if the behaviour is to be successfully transmitted from one person to the next.
Even rats have a special way of socially transmitting information. Without directly observing what other rats have eaten, rats will smell the food on the breath of other rats and then preferentially search for this food. Cathy Keifer/Shutterstock
Processes Supporting Observational Learning
Albert Bandura (Bandura, 1973; Bandura & Walters, 1963) identified four processes involved in observational learning: attention to the act or behaviour, memory for it, the ability to reproduce it, and the motivation to do so (see Figure 6.16 ). Without any one of these processes, observational learning would be unlikely—or at least would result in a poor rendition of the behaviour.
Figure 6.16 Processes Involved in Observational Learning For observational learning to occur, several processes are required: attention, memory, the ability to reproduce the behaviour, and the motivation to do so.
First, consider the importance of attention. Seeing someone react with a classically conditioned fear to snakes or spiders can result in acquiring a similar fear—even in the absence of any direct experience with snakes or spiders
(LoBue et al., 2010). As an example, are you afraid of sharks? It is likely that many of you have this fear, even if you live thousands of kilometres away from shark-infested waters. The fear you see on the faces of people in horror movies
and in “Shark Week” documentaries is enough for you to learn this experience. Observational learning can extend to operant conditioning as well. Observing someone being rewarded for certain behaviours facilitates imitation of the same behaviours that bring about rewards.
Second, memory is an important facet of observational learning. When we learn a new behaviour, there is often a delay before the opportunity to perform it arises. If you tuned in to a cooking show, for example, you would need to recreate the steps and processes required to prepare the dish at a later time. Interestingly, memory for how to reproduce a behaviour or skill can be found at a
very early age (Huang, 2012). Infants just nine months of age can reproduce a new behaviour (admittedly, a much simpler one than cooking), even if there is up to a one-week delay between observing the act and having the opportunity to
reproduce it (Meltzoff, 1988).
Third, observational learning requires that the observer can actually reproduce the behaviour. This can be very challenging, depending on the task. Unless an individual has a physical impairment, learning an everyday task—such as operating a can opener—is not difficult. By comparison, hitting a baseball thrown by a Toronto Blue Jays pitcher requires a very specialized skill set. Research indicates that observational learning is most effective when we first observe, practise immediately, and continue practising and observing soon after acquiring the response. For example, one study found that the optimal way to develop and maintain motor (movement) skills is by repeated observation before and during
the initial stages of practising (Weeks & Anderson, 2000). It appears that watching someone else helps us practise effectively, and allows us to see how errors are made. When we see a model making a mistake, we know to examine
our own behaviour for similar mistakes (Blandin & Proteau, 2000; Hodges et al., 2007).
Myths in Mind Is Teaching Uniquely Human? Teaching is a significant component of human culture and a primary means by which information is learned in classrooms, at home, and in many other settings. But are humans the only species with the ability to
teach others? Some intriguing examples of teaching-like behaviour have
been observed in nonhuman species (Thornton & Raihani, 2010). Prepare to be humbled.
Teaching behaviour was recently discovered in ants (Franks & Richardson, 2006)—probably the last species we might suspect would demonstrate this complex ability. For example, a “teacher” ant gives a “pupil” ant feedback on how to locate a source of food.
Field researchers studying primates discovered the rapid spread of
potato-washing behaviour in Japanese macaque monkeys (Kawai, 1965). Imo—perhaps one of the more ingenious monkeys of the troop— discovered that potatoes could be washed in salt water, which also may have given them a more appealing taste. Potato-washing behaviour subsequently spread through the population, especially among the monkeys that observed the behaviour in Imo and her followers.
Primate researchers have documented the spread of potato washing in Japanese macaque monkeys across multiple generations. Monkeys appear to learn how to do this by observing experienced monkeys from their troop. Miles Barton/Nature Picture Library
Transmission of new and unique behaviours typically occurs between
mothers and their young (Huffman, 1996). Chimpanzee mothers, for example, actively demonstrate to their young the special skills required to
crack nuts open (Boesch, 1991). Also, mother killer whales appear to show their offspring how to beach themselves (Rendell & Whitehead, 2001), a behaviour that is needed for the type of killer whale that feeds on seals that congregate along the shoreline.
In each of these examples, it is possible that the observer animals are imitating the individual who is demonstrating a behaviour. These observations raise the possibility that teaching may not be a uniquely human endeavour.
Is this killer whale teaching her offspring to hunt for seals? Researchers have found evidence of teaching in killer whales and a variety of other nonhuman species. Danita Delimont Creative/ Alamy Stock Photo
Finally, motivation is clearly an important component of observational learning. On the one hand, being hungry or thirsty will motivate an individual to find out where others are going to find food and drink. On the other hand, a child who has no aspirations to ever play the piano will be less motivated to observe his teacher during lessons. He will also be less likely to practise the observed behaviour that he is trying to learn.
Observational punishment is also possible, but appears to be less effective at changing behaviour than reinforcement. Witnessing others experience negative consequences may decrease your chances of copying someone else’s behaviour. Even so, we are sometimes surprisingly bad at learning from observational punishment. Seeing the consequences of smoking, drug abuse, and other risky behaviours does not seem to prevent many people from engaging in the same activities.
Imitation and Mirror Neurons
One of the primary mechanisms that allows observational learning to take place
is imitation —recreating someone else’s motor behaviour or expression, often to accomplish a specific goal. From a very young age, infants imitate the facial expressions of adults (Meltzoff & Moore, 1977). Later, as they mature physically, children readily imitate motor acts produced by a model, such as a parent, teacher, or friend. This ability seems to be something very common among humans. However, it is currently unclear what imitation actually is, although a number of theories exist. Some researchers suggest that children receive positive reinforcement when they properly imitate the behaviour of an
adult and that imitation is a form of operant learning (Horne & Erjavec, 2007). Others suggest that imitation allows children to gain a better understanding of
their own body parts versus the “observed” body parts of others (Mitchell, 1987). Finally, imitation might involve a more cognitive representation of one’s own
actions as well as the observed actions of someone else (Whiten, 2000). It is likely that all three processes are involved with imitation at different points in
human (and some animal) development (Zentall, 2012).
Neuroscientists have provided additional insight into the functions of imitation. In the 1990s, Italian researchers discovered that groups of neurons in parts of the frontal lobes associated with planning movements became active both when a
monkey performed an action and when it observed another monkey performing an action (di Pellegrino et al., 1992). These cells, now known as mirror neurons, are also found in several areas in the human brain and have been linked to many different functions ranging from understanding other people’s
emotional states to observational learning (Rizzolatti et al., 1996; Rizzolatti & Craighero, 2004). Additionally, groups of neurons appear to be sensitive to the context of an action. In one study, participants viewed a scene of a table covered
in a plate of cookies, a teapot, and a cup (see Figure 6.17 ). In one photo of these items, the setting is untouched. In this case, reaching for the cup of tea would indicate that the person intended to have a sip. In another photo, many of the cookies are gone and the milk container has been knocked over. In this case, reaching for the cup of tea—the identical action as in the previous photo—would indicate that the person was cleaning up the mess. Incredibly, different groups of mirror neurons fired in response to the two images, despite the fact that the
identical movement was being viewed (Iacoboni et al., 2005). These results suggest that the mirror neuron system—a key part of our ability to imitate—is sensitive to the purpose or goal of the imitated action.
Figure 6.17 Grasping Intentions of Mirror Neurons Watching the same physical action—grabbing the teacup— in these two scenarios will lead to activity in different groups of neurons in the mirror neuron system. This suggests that the mirror neuron system is influenced by the goals of the actions, not just the physical action itself. Source: From Iacoboni, M., Molnar-Szakacs, I., Gallese, V., Buccino, G., Mazziotta, J. C., and Rizzolatti, G. PLoS Biol, 2005,
3, e79. http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.0030079.g001. Reprinted under open access license.
Working the Scientific Literacy Model Linking Media Exposure to Behaviour
Imitating behaviours such as opening contraptions with sticks or picking up teacups is fairly harmless. However, not all of the behaviours children see are this innocent. Children (and adults) are exposed to dozens of violent actions in the media, on the Internet, and in computer games every day. If kids are imitating the behaviours they see in other contexts, does this mean that the media are creating a generation of potentially violent people?
What do we know about media effects on behaviour? In some cases, learning from the media involves direct imitation; in other cases, what we observe shapes what we view as normal or acceptable behaviour. Either way, the actions people observe in the media can raise concerns, especially when children are watching. Given that North American children now spend an average of five hours per day interacting with electronic media, it is no wonder that one of the most discussed and researched topics in observational learning is the role of media violence in developing aggressive behaviours and desensitizing individuals
to the effects of violence (Anderson et al., 2003; Huesmann, 2007). So how have researchers tackled the issue?
How can science explain the effect of media exposure on children’s behaviour? One of the first experimental attempts to test whether exposure to violence begets violent behaviour in children was made by Albert
Bandura and colleagues (1961, 1963). In a series of studies, groups of children watched an adult or cartoon character attack a “Bobo” doll, while another group of children watched adults who
did not attack the doll. Children who watched adults attack the doll did likewise when given the opportunity, in some cases even imitating the specific attack methods used by the adults. The other children did not attack the doll. This provided initial evidence that viewing aggression makes children at least temporarily more prone to committing aggressive acts toward an inanimate object.
Decades of research has since confirmed that viewing aggression is associated with increased aggression and
desensitization to violence (Bushman & Anderson, 2007). In one Canadian study, Wendy Josephson (1987) had children aged 7–9 view a violent or nonviolent film before playing a game of floor hockey. Not surprisingly, children who viewed the violent film were more likely to act aggressively (i.e., to commit an act that would be penalized in a real hockey game). As an added twist, in some of the floor hockey games, a referee carried a walkie-talkie that had appeared in the violent film and thus served as a reminder of the violence. This movie-associated cue stimulated more violence, particularly in children who the teachers had indicated were prone to aggression.
Visual images are not the only source of media violence,
however. Music, particularly hip hop and rap music (Herd, 2009), has become increasingly graphic in its depictions of violence over the last few decades. Psychologists have found that songs with violent lyrics can lead to an increase in aggressive and hostile
thoughts in a manner similar to violent movies (Anderson et al., 2003). In one study, German researchers asked male and female participants to listen to songs with sexually aggressive lyrics that were degrading to women. After listening to this music, the participants were asked to help out with a (staged) taste- preference study by pouring hot chili sauce into a plastic cup for another participant (who was actually a confederate of the experimenters). The researchers found that after listening to
aggressive music that degraded women, males poured more hot sauce for a female than for a male confederate; this difference did not occur after listening to neutral music. Female participants did not show this effect. Male participants also recalled more negative and aggressive thoughts. Interestingly, when women listened to lyrics that were demeaning to men, they too recalled
more negative and hostile information (Fischer & Greitmeyer, 2006). Thus, the effects of media violence are not limited to the visual domain and can affect both males and females.
Can we critically evaluate this research? Exposure to violent media and aggressive behaviour and thinking are certainly related to each other. However, at least two very important questions remain. First, does exposure to violence
cause violent behaviour or desensitization to violence? Second, does early exposure to violence turn children into violent adolescents or adults? Unfortunately, there are no simple answers to either question, due in large part to investigators’ reliance on correlational designs, which are typically used for studying long-term effects. Recall that correlational studies can establish only that variables are related, but cannot determine that one variable (media) causes another one (violent behaviour). What is very clear from decades of research is that a positive correlation exists between exposure to violent media and aggressive behaviour in individuals, and that this correlation is stronger than those between aggression and peer influence,
abusive parenting, or intelligence (Bushman & Anderson, 2007).
Another concern with these studies is that they aren’t really
examining why people respond aggressively when they see violent imagery. Although there is clearly a role for observational learning, a number of researchers have also suggested that people become desensitized to the violence and thus less likely to inhibit their own violent impulses. Recent brain-imaging studies
support this view. In one study, activity in parts of the frontal and parietal lobes showed reductions in activity as people became
less sensitive to aggression shown in videos (Strenziok et al., 2011). In another experiment, participants with a low history of exposure to media violence showed more activity in frontal-lobe regions related to inhibiting responses than did participants who had more exposure to media violence and who had a history of aggressive behaviour. These differences were particularly strong when participants had to inhibit responses related to aggression- related words (Kalnin et al., 2011). Although these studies don’t definitively explain why media violence affects behaviour, they do point to at least one potential cause.
Why is this relevant? Clearly then, media violence is a significant risk factor for future aggressiveness. Many organizations have stepped in to help parents make decisions about which type of media their children will be exposed to. The Motion Picture Association of America has been rating movies, with violence as a criterion, since 1968. (Canada does not have a national ratings system; individual provinces each rate movies.) Violence on television was being monitored and debated even before the film industry took this step. Since the 1980s, parental advisory stickers have been appearing on music with lyrics that are sexually explicit, reference drug use, or depict violence. Of course, as you know, these precautions have little effect on what children watch and listen to. Kids will always find a way to access this type of material. But, providing parents with more information about how these depictions of violence can affect children will hopefully highlight some of the dangers of these images and lyrics, and may inspire
them to talk to their kids about how violence can be real. Doing so might teach children and adolescents to be better at examining how media violence could be affecting their own behaviour.
In Albert Bandura’s experiment, children who watched adults behave violently toward the Bobo doll were aggressive toward the same doll when given the chance—often imitating specific acts that they viewed. Albert Bandura
Biopsychosocial Perspectives Violence, Video
Games, and Culture Can pixilated, fictional characters controlled by your own hands make you more aggressive or even violent? Adolescents, university students, and even adults in their thirties and forties play hours of video games each day, many of which are very violent. Also, because video games are becoming so widespread, questions have been raised about whether the correlations between media violence and aggression are found across different cultures. What do you think: Do these games increase aggression and violent acts by players? First, test your knowledge and assumptions and then see what research tells us.
True or False? 1. Playing violent video games reduces a person’s sensitivity to
others’ suffering and need for help.
2. Gamers who play violent video games are less likely to behave aggressively if they are able to personalize their own character.
3. Gamers from Eastern cultures, who play violent video games as much as Westerners, are less prone to video game–induced aggression.
4. Physiological arousal is not affected by violent video games. 5. Male gamers are more likely to become aggressive by playing
video games than female gamers.
Answers
Source: These data are from Anderson et al., 2010; Carnagey et al., 2007; and Fischer et al., 2010.
Research examining the effects of violent movies, television shows, and music lyrics paints a disturbing picture of the effects of media on aggressive behaviour. Recently, due to a drastic upsurge in their popularity and sophistication, video games have also been labelled with parental advisory stickers. Some violent games, such as Call of Duty (which has sold over 140 million copies worldwide), involve shooting and blowing up the enemy. Other games, such as Grand Theft
1. True. People who play violent video games often become less sensitive to the feelings and well-being of others. 2. False. Personalizing a character seems to increase aggressive behaviour. 3. False. Gamers from both Eastern and Western cultures show the same effects. 4. False. Players of violent video games show increased physiological arousal during play. However, it is important to remember that this does not mean that playing these games will necessarily cause someone to become violent. 5. False. There are no overall gender differences in aggression displayed by gamers.
Auto, allow the player to commit illegal and violent acts. An obvious question is: Are video games related to aggressive behaviour (i.e., observational learning) in the same way that movies are?
Of course, the most important question is whether a regular pattern of playing
violent video games causes violent behaviour. In 2015, the American Psychological Association issued a report stating that research has shown a consistent link between violent video games and violent behaviour. However, a number of academics disagreed with the methods used to come to these conclusions. Critics also pointed out that violent crime is decreasing in most countries despite the prevalence of video games. The general consensus is that violent video games can lead to aggressive thoughts and behaviours in some people. Whether these games have a long-term effect on behaviour is still unclear.
These data don’t mean that you should never watch a violent movie or play violent video games. And, you don’t need to delete your gangsta rap songs and replace them with a steady diet of Taylor Swift. Rather, these data show you that
the media can influence your behaviour. It’s up to you to become aware of how media violence can lead to (unintentional) observational learning. Doing so will help ensure that your actions are, in fact, your own.
Module 6.3b Quiz:
Observational Learning
Know . . . 1. Observational learning
A. is the same thing as teaching. B. involves a change in behaviour as a result of watching others. C. is limited to humans. D. is not effective for long-term retention.
2. is the replication of a motor behaviour or expression, often to
accomplish a specific goal.
A. Observational learning B. Latent learning C. Imitation D. Cognitive mapping
Apply . . . 3. Nancy is trying to learn a new yoga pose. To obtain the optimal results,
research indicates she should
A. observe, practise immediately, and continue to practice and to observe others.
B. observe and practise one time. C. just closely observe the behaviour. D. observe the behaviour just one time and then practise on her
own.
Analyze . . . 4. Which is the most accurate conclusion from the large body of research
that exists on the effects of viewing media violence?
A. Exposure to violent media directly causes increased aggression and desensitization to violence.
B. There is a positive correlation between exposure to media violence and aggressive behaviour.
C. Researchers cannot establish a link between exposure to violent media and either aggression levels or desensitization to violence without first conducting brain-imaging studies.
D. Viewing aggression is not related to increased aggression and desensitization to violence.
Module 6.3 Summary
imitation
Know . . . the key terminology associated with cognitive and observational learning.
6.3a
latent learning
observational learning
Without being able to observe learning directly, it might seem as if no learning occurs. However, Tolman and Honzik showed that rats can form cognitive maps of their environment. They found that even when no immediate reward was available, rats still learned about their environment.
Apply Activity Based on what you read about in this module, how would you use observational learning in each of these settings?
1. Teaching children how to kick a soccer ball 2. Improving efficiency in a busy office 3. Improving environmental sustainability at a university
Are you simply letting people observe your behaviour, or does your plan involve elements learned in other modules in this chapter (e.g., shaping)?
Psychologists agree that observational learning occurs and that media can influence behaviour. Many studies show a correlational (noncausal) relationship between violent media exposure and aggressive behaviour. Also, experimental studies, going all the way back to Albert Bandura’s work in the 1960s, indicate that exposure to violent media can at least temporarily increase aggressive behaviour.
Understand . . . the concept of latent learning and its relevance to cognitive aspects of learning.
6.3b
Apply . . . principles of observational learning outside of the laboratory.
6.3c
Analyze . . . the claim that viewing violent media increases violent behaviour.
6.3d
Chapter 7 Memory
7.1 Memory Systems The Atkinson-Shiffrin Model 272
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Distinguishing Short-Term from Long-Term Memory Stores 276
Module 7.1a Quiz 278
The Working Memory Model: An Active STM System 279
Module 7.1b Quiz 281
Long-Term Memory Systems: Declarative and Nondeclarative Memories 282
Module 7.1c Quiz 283
The Cognitive Neuroscience of Memory 283
Module 7.1d Quiz 286
Module 7.1 Summary 287
7.2 Encoding and Retrieving Memories Encoding and Retrieval 289
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Context-Dependent Memory 291
Module 7.2a Quiz 295
Emotional Memories 295
Module 7.2b Quiz 297
Forgetting and Remembering 298
Module 7.2c Quiz 300
Module 7.2 Summary 301
7.3 Constructing and Reconstructing Memories How Memories Are Organized and Constructed 303
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: How Schemas Influence Memory 303
Module 7.3a Quiz 305
Memory Reconstruction 306
Module 7.3b Quiz 311
Module 7.3 Summary 312
Module 7.1 Memory Systems
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Learning Objectives
In October 1981, an Ontario man lost control of his motorcycle and flew off an exit ramp west of Toronto. He suffered a severe head injury and required immediate brain surgery in order to treat the swelling caused by the impact. Brain scans conducted after the accident showed extensive
Know . . . the key terminology of memory systems. Understand . . . which structures of the brain are associated with specific memory tasks and how the brain changes as new memories form. Apply . . . your knowledge of the brain basis of memory to predict what types of damage or disease would result in which types of memory loss. Analyze . . . the claim that humans have multiple memory systems.
7.1a 7.1b
7.1c
7.1d
damage to the temporal lobes (including the hippocampus) as well as to both frontal lobes and the left occipital lobe. When the man, now known as patient K.C., recovered consciousness, doctors quickly noted that he had severe memory impairments. However, when psychologists from the University of Toronto dug deeper into K.C.’s condition, it became clear that he had retained some memory for general knowledge, but had lost
his episodic memory, the memory of his specific experiences (Tulving et al., 1988). Strikingly, K.C. could recall the facts about his life (e.g., where he lived) but could not recall his personal experiences or feelings relating to those facts (e.g., sitting on the steps with friends).
K.C.’s devastating experience helped researchers prove that we have several different types of memory, each involving different networks of
brain areas (Rosenbaum et al., 2005). His case also hearkens back to a philosophical question posed by William James (1890/1950) over a century ago: If an individual were to awaken one day with his or her personal memories erased, would he or she still be the same person?
Focus Questions
1. How is it possible to remember just long enough to have normal conversations and activities but then to forget them almost immediately?
2. How would damage to different brain areas affect different types of memory?
You have probably heard people talk about memory as if it were a single ability:
I have a terrible memory! Isn’t there some way I could improve my memory?
But have you ever heard people talk about memory as if it were several abilities?
One of my memories works well, but the other is not so hot.
Probably not. However, as you will learn in this module, memory is actually a collection of several systems that store information in different forms for differing
amounts of time (Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1968). One influential model for understanding these different systems, and the different types of memories they
involve, can be seen in Figure 7.1 .
Figure 7.1 The Atkinson-Shiffrin Model Memory is a multistage process. Information flows through a brief sensory memory store into short-term memory, where rehearsal encodes it into long-term memory for permanent storage. Memories are retrieved from long-term memory and brought into short-term storage for further processing.
Source: Based on “Human Memory: A Proposed System and Its Control Processes” by in The Psychology of Learning and
Motivation: Advances in Research and Theory, Vol 2 (pp. 89–195).
The Atkinson-Shiffrin Model
In the 1960s, Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin reviewed what psychologists knew about memory at that time and constructed the memory model that bears
their name (see Figure 7.1 ). The first thing to notice about the Atkinson- Shiffrin model is that it includes three memory stores (Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1968). Stores retain information in memory without using it for any specific purpose; they essentially serve the same purpose as hard drives serve for a computer. The three stores include sensory memory, short-term memory (STM), and long-term memory (LTM), which we will investigate in more detail later. In
addition, control processes shift information from one memory store to another. These are represented by the arrows in the model in Figure 7.1 .
An important point illustrated in Figure 7.1 is that our memory systems, although stunningly powerful, are not perfect. We lose, or forget, information at each step of this model. Information enters the sensory memory store through all of the senses (e.g., vision, hearing, etc.), and the control process we call attention selects which information will be passed on to STM. This is highly functional: the attention process selects some elements of our environment that will receive further processing and add to our experience and understanding of the world. However, this functionality comes at a cost, because a vast amount of sensory information is quickly forgotten, almost immediately replaced by new input. We selectively narrow the information we receive in STM even further
through encoding , the process of storing information in the LTM system. We retain only some information and lose the rest. Retrieval brings information from LTM back into STM; this happens when you become aware of existing memories, such as remembering the movie you saw last week. Of course, this process is not perfect—we are sometimes unable to retrieve information when we want to. But, overall, our ability to retrieve information is astonishing. This interplay between remembering and forgetting is a theme that extends across all
of the modules in this chapter. In this module, we are primarily concerned with the various types of memory stores, so we will examine each one in detail.
Sensory Memory
“What did I just say to you?” This sentence rarely leads to good things. It is generally spoken when one person in a conversation (e.g., a relationship partner) is apparently not paying attention to what another person (e.g., the other relationship partner) is saying. Individuals on the receiving end of this sentence often experience anxiety, if not a sense of doom. Luckily, we have a memory store that can sometimes come to the rescue.
Sensory memory is a memory store that accurately holds perceptual information for a very brief amount of time—how brief depends on which sensory system we talk about. Iconic memory , the visual form of sensory memory, is held for about one-half to one second. Echoic memory , the auditory form of sensory memory, is held for considerably longer, but still only for about 5–10 seconds (Cowan et al., 1990). It is this form of sensory memory that will allow you to repeat back the words you just heard, even though you may have been thinking about something else.
How much information can be held in sensory memory? This important question has proven very difficult to answer, because sensory memories—particularly
visual memories—disappear faster than an individual can report them. George Sperling (1960) devised a brilliant method for testing the storage capacity of iconic memory. In his experiment, researchers flashed a grid of letters on a
screen for a fraction of a second (Figure 7.2 a), and participants were asked to report what they saw. In the whole report condition, participants attempted to recall as many of the letters as possible—the whole screen. Participants were generally able to report only three or four of the letters, and these would usually be in the same line. But does this mean that the iconic sensory memory system can only store three or four bits of information at a time? Sperling thought that it likely had a larger capacity, but hypothe-sized that the memory of the letters actually faded faster than participants could report them. To test this, in the
partial report condition, participants were again flashed a set of letters on the screen, but the display was followed immediately by a tone that was randomly
chosen to be low, medium, or high (Figure 7.2 b). After hearing the tone, participants were to report the corresponding line of letters—bottom, middle, or top. Under these conditions, participants still reported only three or four of the letters, but they reported them from the row indicated by the tone. Because the tone came after the screen went blank, the only way the participants could get the letters right is if all of the letters were (temporarily) stored in sensory memory. Thus Sperling argued that iconic memory could hold all 12 letters as a mental image, but that they would only remain in sensory memory long enough for a few letters to be reported.
Figure 7.2 A Test of Iconic Sensory Memory Sperling’s participants viewed a grid of letters flashed on a screen for a split second, then attempted to recall as many of the letters as possible. In the whole
report condition (a), they averaged approximately four items, usually from a single row. However, in the partial report condition (b), participants could usually
name any row of four items, depending on the row they were cued to recite. This indicated that participants’ iconic memory system could store far more than the mere four items they were able to report.
But if information in our sensory memory disappears after half a second, then how can we have any continuous perceptions? How can you stare meaningfully into someone’s eyes without that person fading away from memory half a second after you look away, just like the letters in Sperling’s experiment? The answer is attention. Attention allows us to move a small amount of the information from our sensory memory into STM for further processing. This information is often
referred to as being within the “spotlight of attention” (Pashler, 1998). Information that is outside of this spotlight of attention is not transferred into STM and is unlikely to be remembered.
The relationship between sensory memory and attention is beautifully illustrated
by a phenomenon known as change blindness (Rensink et al., 1997, 2000; Simons & Levin, 1997). In a typical change blindness experiment, participants view two nearly identical versions of a photograph (or some other stimulus); these stimuli will have only one difference between them (e.g., a car is different colours in the two photographs). The goal on each trial of the experiment is to
locate the difference (see Figure 7.3 ). However, the way in which the images are displayed presents quite a challenge. The two versions of the photograph are alternately presented for 240 ms each, with a blank screen in between them. So, a participant would see Photograph 1, blank screen, Photograph 2, blank screen, Photograph 1, blank screen, and so on. If the item that differs between the two photographs (e.g., the car) is not the focus of attention, people generally fail to
notice the change (hence the term change blindness). This is likely because the appearance of the blank screen in between the two photographs occupies sensory memory, thus making the memory of the previous photograph less accessible. However, if the participant is paying attention to that changing element (i.e., the “spotlight” of attention is focused on that part of the image), the image of the first version of that item will be transferred into STM when the
second, changed version appears on the screen. The difference between the two photographs then becomes apparent.
Figure 7.3 Change Blindness, Attention, and Sensory Memory In change blindness, the sensory memory of photograph A disappears before the onset of photograph B, making it difficult to identify the difference between the two pictures. However, if a person is paying attention to the area that differs between the two photographs, then the representation of that part of the first photograph will still be in short-term memory when the second photograph appears, thus making it relatively easy to spot the change. In this example, part of a tree branch disappears in photograph B. Source: Based on Rensink, R. A., O’Regan, J. K., & Clark, J. J. (1997). To see or not to see: The need for attention to
perceive changes in scenes. Psychological Science, 8, 368–373. (Figure 1, p. 369).
An obvious question that arises is: Why don’t people quickly move their spotlight of attention around so that they can transfer all of their sensory memory into short-term memory? Unfortunately, there is a limit to how much information can
be transferred at once (Marois & Ivanoff, 2005).
Short-Term Memory and the Magical Number 7
Although transferring information from sensory memory into short-term memory increases the chances that this information will be remembered later, it is not
guaranteed. This is because short-term memory (STM) is a memory store with limited capacity and duration (approximately 30 seconds). The capacity of STM was summed up by one psychologist as The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two (Miller, 1956). In his review, Miller found study after study in which participants were able to remember seven units of information, give or take a couple. One researcher made the analogy between STM and a juggler who can keep seven balls in the air before dropping any of them. Similarly, STM can rehearse only seven units of information at once before forgetting something
(Nairne, 1996).
This point leads to an important question: What, exactly, is “a unit of information”? The answer is not as straightforward as one might expect. It turns
out that, whenever possible, we expand our memory capacity with chunking , organizing smaller units of information into larger, more meaningful units. These larger units are referred to as chunks. Consider these examples:
1. O B T N C H C V N T C N S N C 2. C B C H B O C T V T S N C N N
If we randomly assigned one group of volunteers to remember the first list, and another group to remember the second list, how would you expect the two groups to compare? Look carefully at both lists. List 2 is easier to remember than list 1. Volunteers reading list 2 have the advantage of being able to apply patterns that fit their background knowledge; specifically, they can chunk these letters into five groups based on popular television networks:
1. CBC HBO CTV TSN CNN
In this case, chunking reduces 15 bits of information to a mere five. We do the same thing with phone numbers. We turn the area code (236) into one chunk, the first three numbers (555) into another chunk, and then the final four numbers into one or two chunks depending upon the numbers (e.g., 1867 might be one
chunk because it can be remembered as the year Canada became a country, while 8776 could be remembered as two chunks representing the jersey numbers for hockey players Sidney Crosby and P. K. Subban or, if you’re not a hockey fan, some other meaningful pattern).
The ability to chunk material varies from situation to situation. If you had never watched television, then the five chunks of information in the example above wouldn’t be very meaningful to you. This suggests that experience or expertise plays a role in our ability to chunk large amounts of information so that it fits into our STM. Studies of chess experts have confirmed that this is the case. Whereas most people would memorize the positions of chess pieces on a board individually, chess masters perceive it as a single unit, like a photograph of a
scene (Chase & Simon, 1973; Gobet & Simon, 1998). Therefore, they are able to remember the positions of significantly more chess pieces than novices can. Of course, chunking only works when the chess pieces are aligned in meaningful chess positions; when they are randomly placed on the board, the experts’
memory advantage disappears (see Figure 7.4 ). Chunking also allows the chess masters to envision what the board will look like after future moves, again providing them with an edge over novices.
Figure 7.4 Chunking in Chess Experts Chess experts have superior STM for the locations of pieces on a chess board due to their ability to create STM chunks. This advantage only occurs when the pieces are placed in a meaningful way, as they would appear in a game. (a) A depiction of a board with the pieces placed as they would appear in a game (left) and pieces placed in random locations (right). (b) The difference in STM for meaningful vs. randomly placed pieces increased as a function of the test subject’s chess experience. Source: Based on Gobet, F., Lane, P. C. R., Croker, S., Cheng, P. C. H., Jones, G., Oliver, I., and Pine, J. M. (2001).
Chunking mechanisms in human learning. TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences, 5(6), 236–243. (Figure 1, p. 237).
Importantly, this expertise is not necessarily based on some innate talent; it can be learned through intensive practice. The most stunning confirmation of this
view comes from the Polgár sisters of Budapest, Hungary (Flora, 2005). Their father, Lázló Polgár, decided before they were born that he was going to raise them to become chess grandmasters. Doing so would confirm his belief that anyone could be trained to become a world-class expert in any field if he or she worked hard enough (he was not a grandmaster himself). Polgár trained his daughters in the basics of chess, and had them memorize games so that they could visualize each move on the board. After thousands of hours of what amounts to “chunking training,” the girls (who, luckily, enjoyed chess) rose to the top of the chess world. The eldest daughter, Susan, became the first female to earn the title of Grandmaster through tournament play. The youngest daughter, Sofia, is an International Master. The middle daughter, Judit, is generally thought of as the best female chess player in history.
Long-Term Memory
Not all of the information that enters STM is retained. A large proportion of it is lost forever. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, however. Imagine if every piece of information you thought about remained accessible in your memory. Your mind would be filled with phone numbers, details from text messages, images from billboards and ads on buses, as well as an incredible amount of trivial information from other people (e.g., overhearing the coffee order of the person in front of you). Instead, only a small amount of information from STM is encoded or transformed into a more permanent representation that we can intentionally access later on. Encoding allows information to enter the final memory store in
the Atkinson-Shiffrin model. This store, long-term memory (LTM) , holds information for extended periods of time, if not permanently. Unlike short-term memory, long-term memory has no capacity limitations (that we are aware of). All of the information that undergoes encoding will be entered into LTM.
Once entered into LTM, the information needs to be organized. Researchers have identified at least two ways in which this organization occurs. One way is
based on the semantic categories that the items belong to (Collins & Loftus, 1975). The mental representation of cat would be connected to and stored near the mental representation of other animals such as dog and mouse. This model is consistent with the results from an interesting experiment from the 1950s.
Participants were asked to remember a list of 60 words that were drawn from four different categories. Although the words were randomly presented, participants recalled them in semantically related groups (e.g., lion, tiger, cheetah . . . guitar, violin, cello, etc.). This research suggests that semantically
related items are stored near each other in LTM (see Module 8.1 ). A second way that LTM is organized is based on the sounds of the word and on how the
word looks. This explains part of the tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) phenomenon , when you are able to retrieve similar sounding words or words that start with the same letter but can’t quite retrieve the word you actually want (Brown & McNeil, 1966). What appears to be happening in these situations is that nearby items, or nodes, in your neural network are activated.
Of course, having the information in LTM doesn’t necessarily mean that you can access it when you want to. If that were the case, then you would never forget where you put your keys, and no one would be impressed by your knowledge of pop culture trivia. Instead, the likelihood that a given piece of information will undergo retrieval—the process of accessing memorized information and returning it to short-term memory—is influenced by a number of different factors including the quality of the original encoding and the strategies used to retrieve the information. These important processes are described in depth later in this chapter.
Working the Scientific Literacy Model Distinguishing Short-Term from Long-Term Memory Stores
The Atkinson-Shiffrin model of memory is very neat and tidy, with different memory stores contained in separate boxes. The problem is that the real world rarely involves 30-second blocks of time filled with 7 ± 2 pieces of information followed by a short break to encode them. Instead, we are often required to use both STM and LTM at the same time. Without this ability, we wouldn’t
be able to have conversations, nor would we be able to understand paragraphs of text like this one. So, if both STM and LTM are constantly working together, how do we isolate the functions of each memory store?
What do we know about short-term and long-term memory stores? As you’ll recall (thanks to your LTM), STM lasts for approximately 30 seconds and usually contains 7 ± 2 units of information; LTM has no fixed time limits or capacity. The distinction between STM and LTM can be revealed with a simple experiment. Imagine a group of people studied a list of 15 words and then immediately tried to recall the words in the list. The serial position curve—the
U-shaped graph in Figure 7.5 —shows what the results would look like according to the serial position effect : In general, most people will recall the first few items from a list and the last few items, but only an item or two from the middle (Ebbinghaus, 1885/1913). This finding holds true for many types of information, ranging from simple strings of letters to the ads you might recall
after watching the Super Bowl (Laming, 2010; Li, 2010).
Figure 7.5 The Serial Position Effect
Memory for the order of events is often superior for original items (the primacy effect) and later items (the recency effect). The serial position effect provides evidence of distinct short-term and
long-term memory stores.
The first few items are remembered relatively easily (known as
the primacy effect) because they have begun the process of entering LTM. The last few items are also remembered well
(known as the recency effect); however, this is because those items are still within our STM (Deese & Kaufman, 1957). The fate of the items in the middle of the test is more difficult to determine, as they would be in the process of being encoded into LTM. As you have already read, some information is lost during this process.
How can science explain the difference between STM and LTM stores?
The shape of the serial position effect (see Figure 7.5 ) suggests that there are two different processes at work. But, how do we explain the dip in the middle of the curve? Memory researchers suggest that this dip in performance is caused by two different mechanisms. First, the items that were at the beginning
of the list produce proactive interference , a process in which the first information learned (e.g., in a list of words) occupies memory, leaving fewer resources left to remember the newer information. The last few items on the list create retroactive interference —that is, the most recently learned information overshadows some older memories that have not yet made it into long-term memory (see Figure 7.6 ). Together, these two types of interference would result in poorer memory performance for items in the middle of a list.
Figure 7.6 Proactive and Retroactive Interference Contribute to the Serial Position Effect
In addition to demonstrating behavioural differences between STM and LTM, scientists have also used neuroimaging to attempt to identify the different brain regions responsible for each form of
memory. Deborah Talmi and colleagues (2005) at the University of Toronto performed an fMRI experiment in which they asked ten volunteers to study a list of 12 words presented one at a time on a computer screen. Next, the computer screen flashed a word and the participants had to determine whether the word was from their study list. The researchers were mostly concerned about the brain activity that occurred when the volunteers correctly recognized words. When volunteers remembered information from early in the serial position curve, the hippocampus was active (this area is associated with the formation of LTM, as you will read about later). By comparison, the brain areas associated with sensory information—hearing or seeing the words—were more active when people recalled items at the end of the serial position curve. Thus, the researchers believed they had isolated the effects of two different neural
systems which, working simultaneously, produce the serial position curve.
Can we critically evaluate the distinction between STM and LTM? In order to evaluate the idea that the serial-position effect is caused by two interacting memory systems, we need at least two types of tests. First, we need to find evidence that it is possible to change the performance on one test but not the other. Then we need to find medical cases in which brain damage affected one system, but not the other. Together, these findings would support the view that STM and LTM stores can be distinguished from each other.
The fact that it is possible to separately affect the primacy and recency effects was demonstrated in the 1950s and 1960s. When items on a list are presented quickly, it becomes more difficult to completely encode those items into long-term memory. The result is a reduction in the primacy effect; however, STM will still contain the most recently presented items, thus leaving the recency effect
unchanged (Murdock, 1962). The recency effect can be reduced by inserting a delay between the presentation of the list and the test. This delay will allow other information to fill up STM; LTM, as
shown by the primacy effect, will be unaffected (Bjork & Whitten, 1974).
Evidence from neurological patients also supports the distinction between STM and LTM. STM deficits can occur after damage to the lower portions of the temporal and parietal lobes, as well as to
lateral (outside) areas of the frontal lobes (Müller & Knight, 2006). In contrast, damage to the hippocampus will prevent the transfer of memories from STM to LTM (Scoville & Milner, 1957). These patients will have relatively preserved memories of their past, but will be unable to add to them with new information from short-term memory.
Why is this relevant? The idea of multiple memory stores is theoretically interesting and can explain some of the minor memory problems we all experience (e.g., forgetting parts of a phone number). But, being able to distinguish between STM and LTM has more wide- reaching implications. The fact that it is possible to separate STM and LTM—and that these stores are driven by different brain systems—suggests that you could use simple tests like the serial- position effect to predict where a neurological patient’s brain damage had occurred. Many common assessment tools such as
the Wechsler Memory Scales (Wechsler, 2009) include tests of both types of memory in order to do just that. Clues uncovered by these initial assessment tests can be used by emergency room physicians and neurologists to assist with their diagnosis and may lead them to request a brain scan for a patient (to look for damage) when they might not otherwise have done so.
The Atkinson-Shiffrin Model provides a very good introduction to the different stages of memory formation. However, memory is much more complex than is implied by this box-and-arrow diagram. There are many instances in which information that we didn’t pay much attention to still seems to influence our later behaviour, suggesting that this information entered our memory without us putting effort into encoding it. For instance, children learn new languages and mimic the behaviours of those around them (i.e., exhibit observational learning) without being able to articulate how or why they do it. Additionally, brain-imaging studies have shown that both encoding and retrieval involve complex networks of interacting brain structures. Throughout the rest of this module, we will move beyond the Atkinson-Shiffrin Model to examine more complex and nuanced aspects of human memory. In the next section, we will discuss working memory, a sophisticated form of STM that involves a number of different, complementary, pieces.
Module 7.1a Quiz:
The Atkinson-Shiffrin Model
Know . . . 1. Which elements of memory do not actually store information, but instead
describe how information may be shifted from one type of memory to another?
A. Serial position processes B. Recency effects C. Primacy effects D. Control processes
2. lasts less than a second, whereas holds information for extended periods of time, if not permanently.
A. Sensory memory; short-term memory B. Short-term memory; sensory memory C. Sensory memory; long-term memory D. Long-term memory; process memory
Apply . . . 3. Chris forgot about his quiz, so he had only 5 minutes to learn 20
vocabulary words. He went through the list once, waited a minute, and then went through the list again in the same order. Although he felt confident, his grade indicated that he missed approximately half of the words. Which words on the list did he most likely miss, and why?
A. According to the primacy effect, he would have missed the first few words on the list.
B. According to the recency effect, he would have missed the last few words on the list.
C. According to the serial position effect, most of the items he missed were probably in the middle of the list.
D. According to the primacy effect, he would have missed all of the words on the list.
Analyze . . . 4. Brain scans show that recently encountered items are processed in one
area of the brain, whereas older items are stored in a different area. Which concept does this evidence support?
A. Multiple memory stores B. A single memory store C. Complex control processes D. Retrieval
The Working Memory Model: An Active STM System
Imagine you are driving a car when you hear the announcement for a radio
contest—the 10th caller at 1-800-555-HITS will win an all-expenses paid trip to Costa Rica! As the DJ shouts out the phone number, panic sets in. You desperately want this prize, but you’re driving—and traffic is swarming. What do you do? As you try to pull over to the side of the road as quickly as you can, you
will probably try to remember the number by using rehearsal , or repeating information (in this case, the number) until you do not need to remember it anymore. Psychological research, however, demonstrates that remembering is much more than just repeating words to yourself (see Module 7.2 ). Instead, keeping information like the radio station’s phone number available is an active process that is much more complex than one would expect.
According to the Atkinson-Shiffrin model of memory, you would attempt to retain the phone number in STM, possibly transferring it to LTM. This process would go smoothly if no other information entered STM, and if traffic cooperated so that you didn’t really have to attend to anything other than the phone number. Of course, the world is rarely that simple. Indeed, in the 1970s, psychologists led by Alan Baddeley suggested that a slightly more complex model of memory was required, one that better explained how memory relates to our moment-to-
moment conscious experiences (Baddeley & Hitch, 1974). The result was a theory of working memory , a model of short-term remembering that includes
a combination of memory components that can temporarily store small amounts of information for a short period of time.
A key feature of working memory is that it recognizes that stimuli are encoded simultaneously in a number of different ways, rather than simply as a single unit of information. Indeed, the classic working memory model for short-term
remembering can be subdivided into three storage components (Figure 7.7 ), each of which has a specialized role (Baddeley, 2001; Jonides et al., 2005): the phonological loop, the visuospatial sketchpad, and the episodic buffer. In the example above, the auditory information from the DJ needs to be remembered so that you can win the trip to Costa Rica (phonological loop). Visual information needs to be remembered so that you can keep track of the traffic patterns while you drive (visuospatial sketchpad). And, while you are juggling these bits of information, you are also linking them together into a mental narrative or story about how you had to pull your car over to try to win an exotic vacation (episodic buffer). These storage components are then coordinated by a control centre
known as the central executive. The central executive helps decide which of the working-memory stores is most important at any given moment (e.g., remembering the phonological information of the phone number). It can also draw from older information that is stored in a relatively stable way to help organize or make sense of the new information.
Figure 7.7 Components of Working Memory Work Together to Manage
Complex Tasks
As you can see, working memory provides a more nuanced model of short-term
memory processes than the Atkinson-Shiffrin model (Cowan, 2008). But is all this additional complexity necessary? Below, we will discuss this model in more detail and show how various research findings support this more complex understanding of memory.
The Phonological Loop
The phonological loop is a storage component of working memory that relies on rehearsal and that stores information as sounds, or an auditory code. It engages some portions of the brain that specialize in speech and hearing, and it can be very active without affecting memory for visual and spatial information. At first glance, it appears similar to the STM store of the Atkinson-Shiffrin model; however, a simple experiment will show you how it differs. Earlier in this module, you read about the magical number 7, the finding that the capacity of STM is
generally 7 ± 2 items. However, research into the word-length effect has shown that people remember more one-syllable words (sum, pay, bar, . . .) than four- or five-syllable words (helicopter, university, alligator, . . .) in a short-term-memory task (Baddeley et al., 1975). Psychologists have found that working memory can only store as many syllables as can be rehearsed in about two seconds, and
that this information is retained for approximately 15 to 30 seconds (Brown, 1958; Peterson & Peterson, 1959). So, in the radio-contest example, you would likely be able to remember the phone number (it can be spoken in under two seconds), but you would need to pull over to use your phone fairly quickly, before the information started to fade away.
Some readers might wonder how the word-length effect and chunking (discussed earlier in this module) can both affect memory. According to early models of
chunking, long words like helicopter and alligator and short words like bar and pay would all be one chunk, whereas the word-length effect suggests that fewer long words would be remembered. Which view is correct? As it turns out, both
can be correct, depending upon how memory is tested. If participants are allowed to recall information in any order, chunking appears to be an important factor. If participants have to recall the information in a particular order, then the
length of the stimuli limits memory (Chen & Cowan, 2005). In the case of remembering the phone number of the radio station in our example, the order of the numbers would obviously be a critical factor.
The Visuospatial Sketchpad
The visuospatial sketchpad is a storage component of working memory that maintains visual images and spatial layouts in a visuospatial code. It keeps you up to date on where objects are around you and where you intend to go. To do so, the visuospatial sketchpad engages portions of the brain related to perception of vision and space and does not affect memory for sounds. Just as the phonological store can be gauged at several levels—that is, in terms of the number of syllables, the number of words, or the number of chunks—items stored in visuospatial memory can be counted based on visual features such as shape, colour, and texture. This leads to an important question: How are these different visual features processed by the visuospatial sketchpad? Do different types of features (e.g., colour vs. shape) get stored separately, or are they integrated into one “chunk”? For example, would a smooth, square-shaped, red block count as one chunk, or three? Research has consistently shown that a square-shaped block painted in two colours is just as easy to recognize as the
same-shaped block painted in one colour (Vogel et al., 2001). Therefore, visuospatial working memory may use a form of chunking. This process of combining visual features into a single unit goes by a different name, however:
feature binding (see Figure 7.8 ).
Figure 7.8 Working Memory Binds Visual Features into a Single Chunk Working memory sometimes stores information such as shape, colour, and texture as three separate chunks, like the three pieces of information on the left. For most objects, however, it stores information as a single chunk, like the box on the right.
After visual feature binding, visuospatial memory can accurately retain approximately four whole objects, regardless of how many individual features one can find on those objects. Perhaps this is evidence for the existence of a
second magical number—four (Awh et al., 2007; Vogel et al., 2001).
To put feature binding into perspective, consider the amount of visual information available to you when you are driving a car, as in the story that started this section. If you are at the wheel, watching traffic, you probably would not look at a car in front of you and remember images of red, shiny, and smooth. Instead, you would simply have these features bound together in the image of the car, and you would be able to keep track of three or four such images without much problem as you glance at the speedometer and then back to the traffic around you. It is also possible that you might group together several cars into one visual chunk (e.g., the six cars you can see directly in front of you); it is likely that our expertise with situations will allow us to alter the size of the chunks in this component of working memory.
The Episodic Buffer
Recent research suggests that working memory also includes an episodic buffer —that is, a storage component of working memory that combines the images and sounds from the other two components into coherent, story-like episodes. These episodes allow you to organize or make sense of the images and sounds, such as “I was driving to a friend’s house when I heard the radio DJ give a number to call.”
The episodic buffer is the most recently hypothesized working memory system
(Baddeley, 2001). It seems to hold 7 to 10 pieces of information, which may be combined with other memory stores. This aspect of its operation can be demonstrated by comparing memory for prose (words strung into sentences) to memory for unrelated words. When people are asked to read and remember
meaningful prose, they usually remember 7 to 10 more words than when reading a random list of unrelated words. Some portion of working memory is able to connect the prose with information found in LTM (“knowledge”) to increase memory capacity.
The Central Executive
Finally, working memory includes one component that is not primarily used for
storing information. Instead, the central executive is the control centre of working memory; it coordinates attention and the exchange of information among the three storage components. It does so by examining what information is relevant to the person’s goals, interests, and prior knowledge and then focusing attention on the working memory component whose information will be most useful in that situation. For example, when you see a series of letters from a familiar alphabet, it is easy to remember the letters by rehearsing them in the phonological loop. In contrast, if you were to look at letters or characters from a foreign language, you may not be able to convert them to sounds; thus you
would assign them to the visuospatial sketchpad instead (Paulesu et al., 1993). Regions within the frontal lobes of the brain are responsible for carrying out these tasks for the central executive.
Working Memory: Putting the Pieces Together
Thus far, we’ve talked about the different pieces of working memory as separate functions. In reality, however, these pieces would work together to influence what information you are able to remember. So how do these four components of the working-memory system work for you when you cannot pull your car over immediately to place the 10th call to win the trip to Costa Rica? Most of us would rely on our phonological loop, repeating the number 1-800-555-HITS to ourselves until we can call. Meanwhile, our visuospatial sketchpad is remembering where other drivers are in relation to our car, even as we look away to check the speedometer, the rearview mirror, or the volume knob. Finally, the episodic buffer binds together all this information into episodes, which might include information such as “I was driving to school,” “the DJ announced a contest,” and “I wanted to pull over and call the station.” In the middle of all this activity is the central executive, which guides attention and ensures that each component is working on the appropriate task. So, if a bus suddenly changed lanes in front of you, the central executive would focus more on the visuospatial sketchpad until you were sure that you were safe; then it would again focus on the phonological loop. Thus, although your memories often seem almost automatic, there is actually a lot of work being performed by your working memory.
Module 7.1b Quiz:
The Working Memory Model: An Active STM System
Know . . . 1. Which of the following systems maintains information in memory by
repeating words and sounds?
A. Episodic buffer B. Central executive C. Phonological loop D. Visuospatial sketchpad
2. Which of the following systems coordinates attention and the exchange of information among memory storage components?
A. Episodic buffer B. Central executive C. Phonological loop D. Visuospatial sketchpad
Apply . . . 3. When Nick looks for his friend’s motorcycle in a parking lot, he sees a
single object, not two wheels, a seat, and a red body. This is an example
of . A. a phonological loop B. feature binding C. buffering D. proactive interference
Long-Term Memory Systems: Declarative and Nondeclarative Memories
Figure 7.1 at the beginning of this module suggests that humans have just one type of long-term memory (LTM). However, as you read in the story about the neurological patient K.C., LTM has a number of different components. K.C. could learn new skills, draw maps, and remember basic facts. Yet, he was
unable to recall specific episodes in his own life (Tulving & Markowitsch, 1998). What do cases like K.C.’s tell us about the organization of LTM?
One way to categorize LTM is based on whether or not we are conscious of a
given memory (see Figure 7.9 ). Specifically, declarative memories (or explicit memories ) are memories that we are consciously aware of and that can be verbalized, including facts about the world and one’s own personal experiences; an easy way to remember this is that declarative memories are, handily, about things we can declare. In contrast, nondeclarative memories (or implicit memories
) include actions or behaviours that you can remember and perform without awareness; that is, these are memories about things that we cannot declare. But, this initial division only scratches the surface of LTM’s complexity. Both declarative and nondeclarative memories have multiple subtypes, each with its own characteristics and brain networks.
Figure 7.9 Varieties of Long-Term Memory Long-term memory can be divided into different systems based on the type of information that is stored.
Declarative Memory
Declarative memory comes in two varieties (Tulving, 1972). Episodic memories are declarative memories for personal experiences that seem to be organized around “episodes” and are recalled from a first-person (“I” or “my”) perspective. Examples of episodic memories would be your first day of university, the party you went to last month, and that time you remember
watching the Olympics on TV. Semantic memories , on the other hand, are declarative memories that include facts about the world. Examples of semantic memories would include knowing that Fredericton is the capital of New Brunswick, remembering that your mother’s birthday is April 6th, and that bananas are (generally) yellow. The two types of memory can be contrasted in an example: Your semantic memory is your knowledge of what a bike is,
whereas episodic memory is the memory of a specific time when you rode a bike. It is worth clarifying that both episodic and semantic memory
representations can be active at the same time. If someone asks you, “Can you ride a bike?”, you will likely think of both semantic information about bikes as well as episodic instances in which you rode one. But, there are also instances in which only one type of memory can be active, such as if someone asked you if you had ever piloted a space shuttle. The term “space shuttle” would activate semantic memory but, unless you are one of the ten Canadians who have been in space, it would not activate episodic memories of you flying through the atmosphere.
The case of K.C. provides compelling evidence that semantic and episodic memories are distinct forms of declarative memory. Although K.C. had no specific memories of events that took place in his high school or his house, he did understand that he had attended high school and that he lived in a specific home in Mississauga, ON. However, K.C. is not the only example of the distinction between these types of memory. Studies of older adults have noted that they show similar (but much less severe) impairments to K.C. on memory tests. As people get older, their episodic memory declines more rapidly than their
semantic memory (Luo & Craik, 2008). Older people are more likely to forget going on vacation five years ago than they are to forget something like the
names of provincial capitals (Levine et al., 2002). Interestingly, they also show normal performance on a number of tests related to nondeclarative memories.
Nondeclarative Memory
Nondeclarative memory occurs when previous experiences influence performance on a task that does not require the person to intentionally
remember those experiences (Graf & Schacter, 1985). The earliest published report of this form of memory came in 1845 when a British physician named
Robert Dunn described the details of a woman with amnesia (Schacter, 1985). This woman learned how to make dresses following her injury, but had no conscious memory of learning to do so. A more pointed example was published
in the early 20th century by Claparède (1911/1951). He reported on an amnesic
woman who learned not to shake his hand because he had previously stuck her with a pin attached to his palm. In both cases, the behaviours of patients with no conscious memories were altered because of previous experiences, thus suggesting that this previous information was encoded into LTM in some form.
But, nondeclarative memories are not isolated to cases of amnesia. You have thousands of nondeclarative memories in your brain right now. However, these two historical examples provide nice examples of two common forms of nondeclarative memories. The example of a woman being able to sew dresses is
an example of a procedural memory , a pattern of muscle movements (motor memory) such as how to walk, play piano, tie your shoes, or drive a car. We often don’t think of the individual steps involved in these behaviours, yet we execute them flawlessly most of the time.
The patient learning not to shake hands with the physician who had a pin
attached to his hand is an example of classical conditioning, when a previously neutral stimulus (e.g., the sound of a metronome) produces a new response (e.g., salivating) because it has a history of being paired with another stimulus that produces that response (e.g., food). Although these associations can sometimes be consciously recalled, this recollection is not necessary for
conditioning to successfully take place (see Module 6.1 ).
Module 7.1c Quiz:
Long-Term Memory Systems: Declarative and Nondeclarative Memories
Know . . . 1. Memories learned without our awareness of them are known as
. A. semantic memories B. episodic memories C. nondeclarative memories D. declarative memories
2. Memories that can be verbalized, whether they are about your own
experiences or your knowledge about the world, are called . A. nondeclarative memories B. procedural memories C. conditioned memories D. declarative memories
Apply . . . 3. Mary suffered a head injury during an automobile accident and was
knocked unconscious. When she woke up in a hospital the next day, she could tell that she was in a hospital room, and she immediately recognized her sister, but she had no idea why she was in the hospital or how she got there. Which memory system seems to be affected in Mary’s case?
A. Semantic memories B. Episodic memories C. Nondeclarative memories D. Working memories
The Cognitive Neuroscience of Memory
Many psychologists who are interested in memory examine it from a biological perspective, examining how the nervous system changes with the formation of new memories. To explore the cognitive neuroscience of memory, we will take a brief look at the neuronal changes that occur as memories are forming and strengthening, and will then examine the brain structures involved in long-term storage. Finally, we will use examples from studies of amnesia and other forms of memory loss to understand how our memory models fit with biological data.
Memory At the Cellular Level
Memory at the cellular level can be summed up in the following way: Cells that fire together, wire together. This idea was proposed in the 1940s by Canadian neuroscientist Donald Hebb. Specifically, he suggested that when neurons fire at
the same time, it leads to chemical and physical changes in the neurons, making
them more likely to fire together again in the future (Hebb, 1949). Later research proved Hebb correct, and demonstrated that changes occur across numerous
brain cells as memories are forming, strengthening, and being stored (Lømo, 1966). This process, long-term potentiation (LTP) , demonstrated that there is an enduring increase in connectivity and transmission of neural signals between nerve cells that fire together.
The discovery of LTP occurred when researchers electrically stimulated two neurons in a rabbit’s hippocampus—a key memory structure of the brain located
in an area called the medial temporal lobes (see Figure 7.10 ). Stimulation of the hippocampus increased the number of electrical potentials from one neuron
to the other. Soon, the neurons began to generate stronger signals than before, a change that could last up to a few hours (Bliss & Lømo, 1973). This finding does not mean that LTP is memory—no one has linked the strengthening of a particular synapse with a specific memory like your first day of university. In fact, no one has seen LTP outside of a laboratory. But, the strengthening of synapses shown in LTP studies may be one of the underlying mechanisms that allow memories to form.
Figure 7.10 The Hippocampus
The hippocampus resides within the temporal lobe and is critical for memory processes.
To see how such microscopic detail relates to memory, consider the very simple case of learning and remembering discussed in a previous module: eyeblink conditioning. Imagine you hear a simple tone right before a puff of air is blown in your eye; you will reflexively blink. After two or three pairings, just the tone will be enough to cause an eye blink—this is an example of classical conditioning (see Module 6.1 ). At the neural level, the tone causes a series of neurons to respond, and the puff of air causes another series of neurons to respond. With repeated tone and air puff pairings, the neurons that are involved in hearing the tone, and those that control the blinking response, develop a history of firing together. This simultaneous activation provides the opportunity for synapses to become strengthened, representing the first stages of memory.
This relationship is not permanent, however. Lasting memories require consolidation , the process of converting short-term memories into long-term memories in the brain, which may happen at the level of small neuronal groups or across the cortex (Abraham, 2006). When neurons fire together a number of times, they will adapt and make the changes caused by LTP more permanent—a
process called cellular consolidation. This process involves physical changes to the synapse between the cells so that the presynaptic cell is more likely to
stimulate a specific postsynaptic cell (or group of cells). Without the consolidation process, the initial changes to the synapse (LTP) eventually fade away, and presumably so does the memory. (This process can therefore be summed up with the saying: Use it or lose it.) To demonstrate the distinction between the initial learning and longer-term consolidation, researchers administered laboratory rats a drug that allowed LTP, but prevented consolidation from occurring (by blocking biochemical actions). The animals were able to learn a task for a brief period, but they were not able to form long-term memories. By comparison, rats in the placebo group, whose brains were able to consolidate the information, went through the same tasks and formed long-term memories
without any apparent problems (Squire, 1986).
The initial strengthening of synapses (LTP) and longer-term consolidation of these connections allow us to form new memories, thus providing us with an ability to learn and to adapt our behaviour based on previous experiences. However, these processes are not performed in all areas of the brain. Instead, specific structures and regions serve essential roles in allowing us to form and maintain our memories, a fact powerfully demonstrated by the memory deficits of patients with amnesia.
Memory, the Brain, and Amnesia
On August 31, 1953, Henry Molaison was a 27-year-old man with intractable epilepsy. Because his seizures could not be controlled by medications, Mr. Molaison had been referred to Dr. William Scoville, a respected Hartford-based neurosurgeon, for treatment. Dr. Scoville and his colleagues had suggested that removing the areas of Molaison’s brain that triggered the seizures would cure, or at least tame, his epilepsy. On September 1, 1953, Henry Molaison underwent a resection (removal) of his medial temporal lobes—including the hippocampus— on both sides of his brain. After that day, he became known to the world as neurological patient H.M.
H.M.’s surgery was successful in that he no longer had seizures. However, as he recovered from his surgery, it became apparent that the procedure had produced some unintended consequences. The doctors quickly determined that H.M. had amnesia —a profound loss of at least one form of memory. However, not all of his memories were lost; in fact, numerous studies conducted by Brenda Milner of McGill University demonstrated that H.M. retained many forms of memory
(Milner, 1962; Scoville & Milner, 1957). He was able to recall aspects of his childhood. He could also remember the names of the nurses who had treated him before the surgery, although he was unable to learn the names of nurses he met afterward. Indeed, H.M. appeared unable to encode new information at all. Therefore, H.M. was experiencing a specific subtype of amnesia known as anterograde amnesia , the inability to form new memories for events occurring after a brain injury.
H.M.’s anterograde amnesia was not due to problems with his sensory memory
or his STM. Both abilities remained normal throughout his life (Corkin, 2002). He was also able to recall details of his past, such as incidents from his school years and from jobs he had held before his surgery; this demonstrates that his LTM
was largely intact (Milner et al., 1968). He was also able to form new implicit memories—he was able to learn new skills such as drawing a picture by looking at its reflection in the mirror despite the fact that he had no memory for learning
this skill (Milner, 1962). Similar improvements were found for solving puzzles (Cohen et al., 1985). After extensive testing, researchers concluded that H.M.’s amnesia was not due to problems with a particular memory store, but was instead due to problems with one of the control processes associated with those stores. Specifically, H.M. could not transfer declarative memories from STM into LTM.
The fact that H.M.’s brain damage was due to a precise surgical procedure (rather than to widespread damage from an accident like patient K.C.) allowed researchers to pinpoint the area of the brain responsible for this specific memory problem. H.M. was missing the medial temporal lobes of both hemispheres. This damage included the hippocampus and surrounding cortex as well as the amygdala. Based on H.M. and several similar cases, researchers concluded that this region of the brain must be involved with consolidating memories (see Figure 7.11 ), enabling information from STM to enter and remain in LTM, a process that most of us take for granted.
Figure 7.11 Damage to the Hippocampus: Disruption of Consolidation When the hippocampus is damaged, the injury interferes with consolidation, the
formation of long-term memories. Such damage does not prevent recall of pre- existing memories, however.
The hippocampus also appears to be essential for spatial memories such as remembering the layout of your house or recalling the route you would take to get to a friend’s apartment. In fact, brain-imaging studies suggest that the size of a person’s hippocampus can vary with the amount of spatial information that people are asked to consolidate. Researchers at King’s College London (U.K.) examined the brains of taxi drivers in that maze-like city and compared them to the brains of age-matched control participants. The taxi drivers, who were required to undergo extensive training and to memorize most of London, had
substantially larger hippocampi than did the control participants (Maguire et al., 2000). This result implies that the demanding memory requirements of that job altered the structure of brain areas related to memory consolidation and spatial memory.
Stored Memories and the Brain
It is important to note that our long-term memories do not just sit on a
neurological shelf and collect dust after they have formed. Memory storage
refers to the time and manner in which information is retained between encoding and retrieval. In other words, memory storage is an active process; stored memories can be updated regularly, such as when someone reminds you of an event from years ago, or when you are reminded of information you learned as a
child. In this way, memories undergo a process called reconsolidation, in which the hippocampus functions to update, strengthen, or modify existing long-term
memories (Lee, 2010; Söderlund et al., 2012). These memories then form networks in different regions of the cortex, where they can (sometimes) be retrieved when necessary. These long-term declarative memories are distributed throughout the cortex of the brain, rather than being localized in one region—a
phenomenon known as cross-cortical storage (Paller, 2004). Interestingly, with enough use, some of the memory networks will no longer need input from the hippocampus. The cortical networks themselves will become self-sustaining. The more that memory is retrieved, the larger and more distributed that network will
become.
Researchers in London found that the hippocampi of taxi drivers, who navigate the complex maze of the city, are larger than the hippocampi of non-taxi drivers
(Maguire et al., 2000). Kamira/Shutterstock
Memories that were recently formed and have not had time to develop extensive cross-cortical networks are much more likely to be lost following a head injury than are older memories. Indeed, many people who have experi enced a brain injury—including concussions—report that they cannot recall some of the events
leading up to their accident. This type of memory deficit is known as retrograde amnesia , a condition in which memory for the events preceding trauma or injury is lost (see Figure 7.12 ). Despite what you might see on soap operas, the “lost time” is generally limited to the seconds or minutes leading up to the injury. The loss of extensive periods of time, as seen in K.C., is quite rare.
Figure 7.12 Retrograde and Anterograde Amnesia The term amnesia can apply to memory problems in both directions. It can wipe out old memories, and it can prevent consolidation of new memories.
The fact that memories can be lost after even minor brain damage shows us that our memory systems are quite delicate. Each of the boxes and arrows in the
Atkinson-Shiffrin model (Figure 7.1 ) can be disrupted in some way; but, the formation and storage of long-term memories seems to be particularly sensitive to injuries. K.C.’s devastating injury shows us that when we lose our memories, we lose an important part of ourselves. So be careful.
Module 7.1d Quiz:
The Cognitive Neuroscience of Memory
Know . . . 1. is a process that all memories must undergo to become long-
term memories.
A. Consolidation B. Retrieval C. Amnesia D. Chunking
Understand . . .
2. Long-term potentiation can be described as A. a decrease in a neuron’s electrical signalling. B. neurons generating stronger signals than before, which then
persist.
C. decreased neural networking. D. an example of working memory.
Apply . . . 3. Damage to the hippocampus is most likely to produce .
A. retrograde amnesia B. consolidation C. anterograde amnesia D. seizures
Module 7.1 Summary
amnesia
anterograde amnesia
attention
central executive
chunking
consolidation
control process
declarative (explicit) memory
echoic memory
encoding
episodic buffer
episodic memory
Know . . . the key terminology of memory systems:7.1a
iconic memory
long-term memory (LTM)
long-term potentiation (LTP)
nondeclarative (implicit) memory
phonological loop
proactive interference
procedural memory
rehearsal
retrieval
retroactive interference
retrograde amnesia
semantic memory
sensory memory
serial position effect
short-term memory (STM)
storage
stores
tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) phenomenon
visuospatial sketchpad
working memory
Understand . . . which structures of the brain are associated with specific memory tasks and how the brain changes as new memories form.
7.1b
The hippocampus is critical to the formation of new declarative memories. Long- term potentiation at the level of individual synapses between nerve cells is the basic mechanism underlying this process. Long-term memory stores are distributed across the cortex. Working memory likely utilizes the parts of the brain associated with visual and auditory perception, as well as the frontal lobes (for functioning of the central executive).
Apply Activity Try responding to these questions for practice:
1. Dr. Richard trains a rat to navigate a maze and then administers a drug that blocks the biochemical activity involved in long-term potentiation. What will happen to the rat’s memory? Will it become stronger? Weaker? Or is it likely the rat will not remember the maze at all?
2. In another study, Dr. Richard removes a portion of the rat’s hippocampus one week after it learns to navigate a maze. What will happen to the rat’s memory? Will it become stronger? Weaker? Or will it be unaffected by the procedure?
Consider all the evidence from biological and behavioural research, not to mention the evidence from amnesia. Data related to the serial position effect indicate that information at the beginning and end of a list is remembered differently, and even processed and stored differently in the brain. Also, evidence from amnesia studies suggests that LTM and STM can be affected separately by brain damage or disease. Most psychologists agree that these investigations provide evidence supporting the existence of multiple storage systems and control processes.
Apply . . . your knowledge of the brain basis of memory to predict what types of damage or disease would result in which types of memory loss.
7.1c
Analyze . . . the claim that humans have multiple memory systems.7.1d
Module 7.2 Encoding and Retrieving Memories
Tkreykes/Fotolia
Learning Objectives
Know . . . the key terminology related to forgetting, encoding, and retrieval. Understand . . . how the type of cognitive processing employed can affect
7.2a
7.2b
According to legend, the first person to develop methods of improving memory was the Greek poet Simonides of Ceos (556–468 BCE). After presenting one of his lyric poems at a dinner party in northern Greece, the host, Scopas, told him that he was only going to pay half of the cost of the poem (he clearly wasn’t impressed by the work). Soon after this exchange, a grumpy Simonides was told that two men on horses wanted to talk to him outside. While talking to the horsemen, the roof of Scopas’ house collapsed, killing everyone inside (Greek legends are not happy places…). When relatives wanted to bury the family, they were unable to figure out who the remains belonged to; no one could recall where the family members had been sitting. Simonides had encoded the information differently than the rest of the guests; he was able to assist the family by creating a visual image of the dinner party and listing who was sitting in each chair. His story demonstrates one of the key points to be discussed in this module—that how you encode information affects the likelihood of you remembering that information later.
Focus Questions
1. What causes some memories to be strong while others are weak?
2. How can we improve our memory abilities?
Why are some memories easier to recall than others? Why do we forget things? How can you use memory research to improve your performance at school and at work? These questions are addressed in this module, where we focus on
the chances of remembering what you encounter. Apply . . . what you have learned to improve your ability to memorize information. Analyze . . . whether emotional memories are more accurate than non- emotional ones.
7.2c
7.2d
factors that influence the encoding and retrieval of memories.
Encoding and Retrieval
In its simplest form, memory consists of encoding new information, storing that information, and then retrieving that stored information at a later time. As
discussed in Module 7.1 , encoding is the process of transforming sensory and perceptual information into memory traces, and retrieval is the process of accessing memorized information in order to make use of it in the present
moment. In between these two processes is the concept of storage, the time and manner in which information is retained between encoding and retrieval. Over the past fifty years, researchers have uncovered a number of factors that influence how our memory systems work, and also how we can improve our chances of remembering information. The most important of these factors appears to be how the information was encoded in the first place.
Rehearsal: The Basics of Encoding
What would you do if someone gave you the address for a house party but you didn’t have a pen or your phone around? How would you keep the address in mind until you had a chance to write it down? If you’re like most people, you will recite the address over and over again until you can write it down. This type of memorization is known as rehearsal to psychologists (although your teachers
may have called it learning by rote), and it is something probably all of us have tried. Indeed, students often try to learn vocabulary terms by reading flashcards with key terms and definitions over and over. But is this strategy effective?
Certainly this approach works some of the time, but is it really the most effective way to remember? Unfortunately for all the cue-card-memorizing students out
there, the answer is a resounding “no” (Craik & Watkins, 1973). The limitations of this form of rehearsal were shown in a sneaky experiment performed in the
1970s (see Figure 7.13 ); in this study, participants were asked to remember a four-digit number. After seeing the number, they were asked to repeat a single
word until being prompted to report the number. The delay between the presentation of the number and the participants’ responses varied from 2 to 18 seconds; this meant that the amount of time each word was repeated also varied. Because participants were trying to remember the digits, they barely paid attention to the word they repeated. Later, when the researchers surprised the participants by asking them to recall the distracting word they had repeated, they found virtually no relationship between the duration of rehearsal (between 2 and 18 seconds) and the proportion of individuals who could recall the word
(Glenberg et al., 1977). In other words, longer rehearsal did not lead to better recall. This is not to say that repeating the word had no effect at all; rather, this study demonstrated that repeating information only had a small benefit, and that this benefit was not increased with longer rehearsal times.
Figure 7.13 Rote Rehearsal Has Limited Effects on Long-Term Memory After participants completed the procedure depicted in this figure, they were given a surprise test of their memory for the words that they had recited. There was no difference in the recall of words rehearsed for 2 or 18 seconds. This result suggests that simply repeating the word—maintenance rehearsal—has a limited effect on our memory.
It turns out that it is not how long we rehearse information, but rather how we rehearse it that determines the effectiveness of memory. Individuals in the study
just described were engaged in maintenance rehearsal —prolonging exposure to information by repeating it—which does relatively little to help the formation of long-term memories (although it is better than nothing). By
comparison, elaborative rehearsal —prolonging exposure to information by thinking about its meaning—significantly improves the process of encoding (Craik & Tulving, 1975). For example, repeating the word bottle, and then imagining what a bottle looks like and how it is used, is an elaborative technique. In the story that began this module, Simonides used a form of elaborative rehearsal by not only memorizing a list of people at a table (Scopus, Constantine, Helena, etc.), but actively imagining the dinner table and thinking about where people were relative to each other.
Although maintenance rehearsal helps us remember for a very short time, elaborative rehearsal improves long-term learning and remembering. It is worth paying attention to this research and thinking about how it applies to your success as a student (a form of elaborative rehearsal of this information). Obviously, being a student involves encoding a large amount of information into your memory in a relatively small amount of time. Imagine how the two types of rehearsal may come into play in meeting the challenge of university-level learning. Students who simply memorize key terms and repeat the definitions largely fail to employ elaborative rehearsal, and are less likely to do well on an exam. The wise strategy is to try to elaborate on the material.
Levels of Processing
Although we often find ourselves using maintenance rehearsal “in a pinch,” we rarely use that strategy for information that we intend to remember much later. Instead, we focus on elaborative encoding, where additional sensory or semantic (meaning) information is associated with the to-be-remembered item. But, not all elaborative encoding is created equal. Instead, different types of elaborative encoding can produce markedly different levels of recall. The details surrounding this variability were first described by researchers at the University of Toronto,
and led to a framework for memory known as levels of processing (LOP).
The LOP framework begins with the understanding that our ability to recall
information is most directly related to how that information was initially processed
(Craik & Lockhart, 1972). Differences in processing can be described as a continuum ranging from shallow to deep processing. Shallow processing , as you might guess, involves more superficial properties of a stimulus, such as the sound or spelling of a word. Deep processing , on the other hand, is generally related to an item’s meaning or its function. The superiority of deep processing was demonstrated in a study in which participants encoded words
using shallow processing (e.g., “Does this word rhyme with dust?. . . TRUST”) or deep processing (e.g., “Is this word a synonym for locomotive?. . .TRAIN”). When given a surprise memory test for the words, the differences ranged from recalling as few as 14% of the shallow words to 96% of the deeply processed
words (Craik & Tulving, 1975). In essence, they were almost seven times more likely to recall a deeply processed word than one that was processed at only a shallow level. Importantly, such effects are limited to LTM; STM memory rates
are unaffected by shallow or deep processing (Rose et al., 2010; Figure 7.14 ).
Figure 7.14 Levels of Processing Affect Long-Term Memory, but Not Working Memory When tested immediately after studying words, levels of processing do not seem to affect memory. In contrast, when there is a gap between studying words and being tested, levels of processing are important. When words are encoded based on their meaning (semantics), they are better retained in long-term memory. Source: Similarities and diferences between working memory and longterm memory: Evidence from the levels-of-processing
span task. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 36 (2), 471–483.
Similar effects have been found for another form of deep processing. The self- reference effect occurs when you think about information in terms of how it relates to you or how it is useful to you; this type of encoding will lead to you remembering that information better than you otherwise would have (Symons & Johnson, 1997). This outcome is not terribly surprising, but it is still helpful to think about when learning new material. The self-reference effect is one of the reasons why your psychology professor (and this textbook) tries to show you how psychological concepts relate to your life—linking a concept to “you” will help you remember it later.
Although encoding strategies clearly influence our ability to remember information later, they only tell part of the story. The conditions in which we attempt to retrieve information from memory can also affect whether or not that information will be recalled.
Retrieval
Once information is encoded—be it in a deep or shallow fashion—and stored in memory, the challenge is then to be able to retrieve that information when it is needed. There are two forms of intentional memory retrieval, both of which are
familiar to long-suffering students like the readers of this textbook. Recognition
involves identifying a stimulus or piece of information when it is presented to you. Examples of recognition memory would be identifying someone you know on the bus (or in a police lineup), or answering standard multiple-choice test questions.
Recall involves retrieving information when asked, but without that information being present during the retrieval process. Examples of this would be describing a friend’s appearance to someone else or answering short-answer or essay questions on an exam.
Recall is helped substantially when there are hints, or retrieval cues, that help prompt our memory. The more detailed the retrieval cue, the easier it is for us to produce the memory. For instance, if you were given a list of 30 words to remember, it is unlikely that you would be able to recall all of the words. But, if you were given a hint for a “forgotten” word, such as “gr—” for the word “grape,” you would be likely to retrieve that information. The hint “grap-” would provide even more information than “gr—” and would lead to even better retrieval
(Tulving & Watkins, 1975). However, life is not a series of word lists. Instead, retrieval cues in the real world often involve places, people, sights, and sounds— in other words, the environment or context in which you are trying to retrieve a
memory. Researchers have found that retrieval is most effective when it occurs in the same context as encoding, a tendency known as the encoding specificity principle (Tulving & Thompson, 1973).
The encoding specificity principle can take many forms. It can include internal contexts such as mood and even whether a person is intoxicated or not. As you’ll see in the next section, encoding specificity can also include external contexts such as the physical setting.
Working the Scientific Literacy Model Context- Dependent Memory
One of the most intuitive forms of encoding specificity is context- dependent memory , the idea that retrieval is more effective when it takes place in the same physical setting (context) as encoding. But, what elements of the environment make up “context”? Is one sense (e.g., smell) enough to produce this effect? And, does context specificity affect all types of memory
equally?
What do we know about context-dependent memory? The initial demonstrations of context-dependent learning and memory used very simple cues: words. In such studies, participants learned pairs of words; some of the words might be
associated with each other (e.g., bark – dog) and others might rhyme with each other (e.g., worse – nurse). A recall test for the second words in each pair (e.g., dog or nurse) generally led to respectable memory performance. However, performance improved when the original context (the first word of the word pair) was reinstated and could serve as a retrieval cue; the more information from the original context that was included, the better
the level of retrieval (Tulving & Watkins, 1975).
Subsequent studies have focused on the role of environmental contexts on memory. In a classic study, members of a scuba club volunteered to memorize word lists—half of the test participants did so while diving 20 feet (6.7 m) underwater, and half did so
while on land (Godden & Baddeley, 1975). After a short delay, the divers were tested again; however, some of the experimental participants had switched locations. This led to four test groups: trained and tested underwater, trained and tested on dry land, trained underwater but tested on land, and trained on land but
tested underwater. As you can see in Figure 7.15 , the results demonstrated that context affects memory. Those who were tested in the same context as where encoding took place (i.e., land–land or underwater–underwater) remembered approximately 40% more items than those who switched locations (i.e., land–underwater or underwater–land). Thus, both controlled laboratory studies and studies involving dramatic environmental manipulations have shown that matching the encoding and retrieval contexts leads to better recall of studied material.
Figure 7.15 Context-Dependent Learning
Divers who encoded information on land had better recall on land than underwater. Divers who encoded information underwater had the reverse experience, demonstrating better recall underwater than when on land. Source: Lilienfeld, Scott O.; Lynn, Steven J; Namy, Laura L.; Woolf, Nancy J., Psychology: From
Inquiry To Understanding, 2nd Ed., © 2011. Reprinted and Electronically reproduced by permission of
Pearson Education, Inc., New York, NY.
How can science explain context-dependent memory? Context-dependent memory clearly demonstrates that the characteristics of the environment can serve as retrieval cues for
memory. In the Godden and Baddeley (1975) study above, the primary cue was likely the feeling of being underwater; however, diving also involves a change of lighting as well as the sounds of the breathing apparatus. In other words, when we encode information, we are also encoding information from a number of different senses (vision, hearing, touch, etc.). Presumably, each of these senses can help trigger memories. For instance, most of you have had the experience where an odour (e.g., cookies) instantly brings back memories (e.g., your grandmother’s
kitchen). This common phenomenon was tested in a clever experiment by researchers in the U.K. In this study, researchers tested whether memory for a Viking museum in York, U.K., could be enhanced if the memory test occurred in a room with a similar distinctive set of smells as the museum (burned wood, apples, garbage, beef, fish, rope/tar, and earth . . . perhaps the Viking equivalent of Axe body spray). The researchers found that participants produced more accurate memories for the museum when the smell of the test room matched the smell of the
museum (Aggleton & Waskett, 1999). Similar results have been found for the effect of smells on memory for word lists (Stafford et al., 2009). Context-dependent memory has also been found for the flavour of gum being chewed during encoding and retrieval
(Baker et al., 2004) as well as for the amount of background noise when students are studying and taking a test (Grant et al., 1998). These results suggest that matching the physical and sensory characteristics of the encoding and retrieval environments affect memory, likely due to the retrieval cues provided by these attributes.
Brain-imaging studies have also provided evidence in favour of context-dependent memory. Studies using fMRI have found increased activity in the hippocampus and parts of the prefrontal cortex (part of the frontal lobes) when the retrieval conditions
match the context in which the memory was encoded (Kalisch et al., 2006; Wagner et al., 1998). Activity in the right frontal lobes is particularly sensitive to context, likely because this region is
known to be critical for the retrieval process (Tulving et al., 1994).
Can we critically evaluate this evidence? Although there is evidence that context-dependent memory exists, there are some important limitations to these effects. First, not all types of memory are equally enhanced by returning a person to the context in which he or she encoded the to-be-
remembered information. Recognition memory (e.g., multiple- choice questions) is not significantly helped by context; this is likely due to the fact that the presence of the item (e.g., a photograph or one of the options on a test question) serves as a very strong retrieval cue. Context does not add much above and
beyond this cue (Fernández & Alonso, 2001). Recall, on the other hand, requires you to generate the to-be-remembered information without any external cues. In this case, returning to the encoding context could help prompt a memory. A second, and related, limitation of context-dependent memory is that not all types of information are equally affected. Information that is central to a memory episode (e.g., a person’s face in a photograph or in a conversation) is generally unaffected by context. Peripheral information (e.g., the faces of people who were nearby when you were having a conversation) does seem to be enhanced when a person returns to the original context
(Brown, 2003; Sutherland & Hayne, 2001). As a rule, when memory for information is quite good, context will have little effect on accuracy; however, when memory is relatively poor, then returning to the encoding context can improve recall.
There is one additional issue related to context-dependent memory. Researchers at Simon Fraser University have noted that returning a person to the context in which he encoded information
can improve recall and increase the number of false positives (i.e., saying “I remember” to stimuli that were never seen). Wong and Read (2011) showed participants a video of a staged crime; viewing took place in either a large testing room or a small study room. Participants returned one week later for a follow-up test in which they were asked to identify the culprit from a photo lineup. This test took place either in the same room as the initial viewing of the video or in the opposite room. The catch was that for half of the participants, the photo lineup did not include the person from the original video (the “target absent condition”). The results of the test demonstrated the effect of context: Performance was
much higher when the testing took place in the same room as the initial encoding. However, participants who took the test in the same context as they saw the video were also more likely to
claim that a photo looked familiar even in the target-absent condition (see Figure 7.16 ). Returning to the encoding context may therefore alter a person’s threshold for saying “I remember.” This trend is likely due to the retrieval cues associated with the environment leading to a feeling of familiarity that is mistakenly
attributed to the to-be-remembered information (Leboe & Whittlesea, 2002), in this case the face of a criminal. This study has clear implications for police procedures, as many police departments encourage returning witnesses to the scene of a
crime in order to improve their memories (Hershkowitz et al., 1998; Kebbel et al., 1999).
Figure 7.16 False Familiarity and Context- Dependent Memory
In a study involving the identification of a thief in a staged robbery, participants viewed a robbery and then later selected the thief from a lineup of photographs. If both stages of the study were performed in the same room (i.e., the context had been reinstated), identification of the thief increased. However, we
should also keep in mind that participants were also more likely to
rate an incorrect face as being familiar; this is shown by the lower accuracy score for the Same than for the Different contexts in the Target Absent condition on the right. Source: From Positive and negative effects of physical context reinstatement on eyewitness recall
and identification. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 25, 2-11. Figure 2 (p. 7), 2009 by Carol K. Wong, J.
Don Read. Copyright © 2009 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Reproduced by permission of John Wiley &
Sons, Inc.
Why is this relevant? One of the most interesting implications of context-dependent memory research is that it implies that some forgotten information is not gone forever, but is instead simply inaccessible because
the proper cues have not been provided (Tulving, 1974). This is the assumption made by police investigators who return witnesses to the scene of the crime. It’s also similar to some memory-improvement strategies such as the mental imagery technique used by Simonides in the story at the beginning of this
module. However, the results of the Wong and Read (2011) photo lineup story do suggest that we need to be cautious in our interpretation of context-dependent memory, as the retrieval cues associated with the context could actually lead to false feelings of familiarity that could have devastating effects on people’s lives.
It is usually not difficult to spot these context effects while they are occurring. Almost everyone has had the experience of walking into a room to retrieve something—maybe a specific piece of mail or a roll of tape—only to find that they have no idea what they intended to pick up. We might call this phenomenon
context-dependent forgetting, if we believe the change in the environment influenced the forgetting. It is certainly frustrating, but can be reversed by the
context reinstatement effect, which occurs when you return to the original location and the memory suddenly comes back; in the above example, this
happens when you walk back into the original room you were in, and suddenly remember, “Oh yeah! Tape!” But, research also shows that these effects are not
isolated to external contexts; your internal environment can serve as a retrieval cue for your memory as well.
State-Dependent Memory
Although we are sure that most readers of this book dedicate their lives to healthy eating and exercise, it is likely that a few of you will have consumed substances that can affect your memory. For example, people sometimes drink enough alcohol that they are unable to remember some details of their night out with their friends. But, is that information gone forever or can it be accessed in the same way that some context-dependent memories can be retrieved with the
help of environmental cues? Research suggests that retrieval is more effective when your internal state matches the state you were in during encoding, a phenomenon known as state-dependent memory . In the first demonstration of this, Goodwin and colleagues (1969) got half of their participants extremely drunk (their blood-alcohol level was three times the legal limit); the other half were sober. Participants encoded information and completed several memory tests; they were then instructed to return 24 hours later for additional testing (and a new liver). On Day 2 of testing, half of the participants were again put into a state of severe intoxication; half of these participants had also been drunk on Day 1, and the other half had been sober. Thus, there were four groups: drunk– drunk (drunk on Day 1 and Day 2), drunk–sober, sober–drunk, and sober–sober. Not surprisingly, the sober–sober group outperformed all of the others. However, tests of recall showed that the drunk–drunk group outperformed the groups in which participants were intoxicated during only one of the two test sessions. The state of intoxication served as a retrieval cue for the participants’ memory. As with context-dependent memory, this effect appears to be strongest for declarative memory (e.g., recall), the form of memory that requires the
participant to generate the response on her own (Duka et al., 2001).
Similar effects have been found for other substances. For instance, marijuana researchers have found that “experienced smokers” who learned (encoded) information while under the effects of marijuana performed better if they received
marijuana before subsequent tests than if they were sober (Hill et al., 1973; Stillman et al., 1974). This group also outperformed participants who encoded information while sober, but were given marijuana before the testing on Day 2. However, the experimenters, in a beautiful example of understatement, did note
that “marihuana did produce some overall impairment in performance” (Stillman et al., 1974, p. 81). State-dependent memory has also been observed for caffeine (Kelemen & Creeley, 2003), a finding that might influence how some of you study and take exams. However, it is important to remember that, like context-dependent memory, the effects of state-dependent memory are fairly small and research is generally limited to artificial stimuli such as word lists. There is therefore no guarantee that drinking yourself silly will fill in the memory gaps of a previous wild night.
Mood-Dependent Memory
Just as similar contexts and chemical states can improve memory, studies of mood-dependent memory indicate that people remember better if their mood at retrieval matches their mood during encoding (Bower, 1981; Eich & Metcalfe, 1989). Volunteers in one study generated words while in a pleasant or unpleasant mood, and then attempted to remember them in either the same or a different mood. The results indicated that if the type of mood at encoding and retrieval matched, then memory was superior. However, changes in the intensity
of the mood did not seem to have an effect (Balch et al., 1999).
As with context- and state-dependent memory, mood-dependent memory has
some limitations (Eich et al., 1994). Mood has a very small effect on recognition memory; it has much larger effects on recall-based tests. Additionally, it produces larger effects when the participant must generate both the to-be- remembered information (e.g., “an example of a musical instrument is a
g “) than if the stimuli are externally generated (e.g., “remember this word: guitar”). In the first example, the participant must put more of his own cognition into the encoding process; therefore, those cognitive processes become important retrieval cues during a later recall-based test.
Although its effects are limited, mood-dependent memory does show that a
person’s emotional state can have an effect on encoding and retrieval. As we shall see, the influence of emotion can be even more dramatic when the stimuli themselves are emotional in nature.
Module 7.2a Quiz:
Encoding and Retrieval
Know . . . 1. The time and manner in which information is retained between encoding
and retrieval is known as . A. maintenance rehearsal B. storage C. elaborative rehearsal D. recall
2. Prolonging exposure to information by repeating it to oneself is referred to as .
A. maintenance rehearsal B. storage C. elaborative rehearsal D. recall
Understand . . . 3. According to the levels of processing approach to memory, thinking about
synonyms for a word is one method of processing that should memory for that term.
A. deep; decrease B. deep; increase C. shallow; increase D. shallow; decrease
Apply . . . 4. If you are learning vocabulary for a psychology exam, you are better off
using a(n) technique.
A. maintenance rehearsal B. elaborative rehearsal C. serial processing D. consolidation
5. When taking a math exam, the concept of would indicate that you would do best if you took the exam in the same physical setting as the setting where you learned the material.
A. context-dependent memory B. state-dependent memory C. environmental dependency process D. sensory-dependent memory
Emotional Memories
Do you remember what you ate for lunch last Tuesday? Is that event imprinted on your memory forever? Unless your lunch was spectacularly good or bad, it’s unlikely that the memory of your sandwich will be very vivid. But what if you saw police arrest people who were fighting in the cafeteria? Or, what if you got food poisoning from your tuna sandwich? Suddenly, that lunch would become much more memorable. Indeed, when you think back to different times in your life, the events that first come to mind are often emotional in nature, such as a wonderful birthday party or the fear of starting at a new school. Emotion seems to act as a highlighter for memories, making them easier to retrieve than neutral memories. This is because emotional stimuli and events are generally self-relevant and are associated with arousal responses such as increased heart rate and sweating. In linking emotion and memory back to topics discussed earlier in this module, it seems reasonable to assume that emotion leads to deep processing of information and involves powerful stimuli that can serve as retrieval cues.
The tendency for emotion to enhance our memory for events has been
demonstrated in a number of studies (LaBar & Cabeza, 2006; Levine & Pizarro, 2004). For instance, in one experiment, participants viewed a series of
images that were emotionally negative (e.g., a snarling dog), emotionally positive (e.g., a puppy), or neutral. The participants rated the images in terms of their emotion (positive vs. negative), arousal (high vs. low), and visual complexity. Two weeks later, the participants were given a memory test for the images that they had rated. Recollection was enhanced for negative and, to a lesser extent,
positive images (Ochsner, 2000). Similar results have been found with emotional words (e.g., Kensinger & Corkin, 2003) and images depicting someone’s daily activities (Laney et al., 2003). It seems that the emotion-related aspects of stimuli do indeed improve memory, particularly for stimuli that trigger negative emotions.
However, although it is intuitive to think that emotion will boost all forms of memory, psychology researchers have found that emotion has fairly specific effects. For example, people often focus their attention on the emotional content of a scene (e.g., a snake). This information—which typically forms the centre of one’s field of vision—is more likely to be remembered than peripheral information (e.g., the flowers near the snake). This phenomenon can take a more sinister turn in the courtroom. Many eyewitnesses to crimes have shown reductions in
memory accuracy due to weapon focus—the tendency to focus on a weapon at the expense of peripheral information including the identity of the person holding
the weapon (Kramer et al., 1990; Loftus et al., 1987).
Research has shown that the memory enhancing effect of emotion is strongest
after long (one hour or more) rather than short delays (LaBar & Phelps, 1998; Sharot & Phelps, 2004). This suggests that emotion’s largest influence is on the process of consolidation, when information that has recently been transferred from short-term memory (STM) into long-term memory (LTM) is strengthened and made somewhat permanent. Emotion has less of an effect on STM and on recognition memory; these types of memory have much less variability than LTM, thus leaving less room for emotion to influence accuracy levels.
The above studies suggest that emotional material received deeper (rather than shallow) processing. However, level of processing is not the only factor influencing memory and emotions. Emotion can influence memory consolidation even if the stimuli themselves are not emotional in nature. For example, in one
study, participants studied a list of words and were then randomly assigned to view a video of oral surgery (the emotional condition) or the way to brush your
teeth effectively (presumably not the emotional condition). Afterwards, the group members who viewed the surgery video remembered more of the words (see Figure 7.17 ) (Nielson et al., 2005). The researchers suggested that this effect was due to the emotional arousal associated with seeing the oral surgery video; this arousal could influence the process of consolidation. Other, more invasive, studies support this conclusion. In one experiment, stimulating the vagus nerve (which brings sensory information from the body and internal organs
to the brain) led to enhanced memory for neutral words (Clark et al., 1999). Thus, the physiological responses associated with emotions can lead to stronger memory formation, even if the to-be-remembered information is not directly related to the emotional event.
Figure 7.17 Does Emotion Improve Memory? In the study by Nielson and colleagues (2005), both groups remembered approximately the same percentage of words at pretest, and then watched dentistry videos unrelated to the word lists. The group whose members watched the more emotional video recalled more of the words in the end, suggesting that the emotional arousal associated with the video helped consolidate memory for the words.
Researchers have identified many of the biological mechanisms that allow
emotion to influence memory (Phelps, 2004). Much of this relationship involves structures in the temporal lobe of the brain: the hippocampus (the structure associated with the encoding of long-term memories) and the amygdala (a structure involved in emotional processing and responding). Brain imaging
shows that emotional memories often activate the amygdala, whereas non-
emotional memories generated at the same time do not (Sharot et al., 2007). These studies have shown that the amygdala can also alter the activity of
several temporal-lobe areas that send input to the hippocampus (Dolcos et al., 2004). As a result, the cells in these brain regions fire together more than they normally would, which may lead to more vivid memories (Kilpatrick & Cahill, 2003; Paz & Paré, 2013; see Figure 7.18 ). However, this coordinated neural activity still does not guarantee that all of the details of an experience will be remembered with complete accuracy.
Figure 7.18 Emotion, Memory, and the Brain Activity in the amygdala influences the activity of nearby regions in the temporal lobes, increasing the degree to which they fire together. This alters the type of input received by the hippocampus from regions of the cortex (the outer part of the temporal lobes).
Flashbulb Memories
Can you remember where you were when Sidney Crosby scored “the golden goal” against Team USA in the 2010 Olympic hockey final? For non-hockey fans, that afternoon might simply have been a fun time with friends and family, or
perhaps was entirely forgettable if they weren’t watching the game. But for others, the memory of that event might take on a vivid, almost photographic, quality. This phenomenon led researchers to label such an intense and unique
memory as being a flashbulb memory —an extremely vivid and detailed memory about an event and the conditions surrounding how one learned about the event (Brown & Kulik, 1977). (The term flashbulb refers to the flash of an old-fashioned camera.) These highly charged emotional memories typically involve recollections of location, what was happening around oneself at the time
of the event, and the emotional reactions of self and others (Brown & Kulik, 1977). Some may be personal memories, such as the memory of an automobile accident. Other events are so widely felt that they seem to form flashbulb memories for an entire society, such as the assassination of U.S. President
Kennedy in 1963 (Brown & Kulik, 1977), the explosion of the space shuttles Challenger or Columbia (Kershaw et al., 2009; Neisser & Harsch, 1992), and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 (Hirst et al., 2009; Paradis et al., 2004). One defining feature of flashbulb memories is that people are highly confident that their recollections are accurate. But is this confidence warranted? Several studies (described in the Myths in Mind section above) suggest that we should give flashbulb memories a second look.
Myths in Mind The Accuracy of Flashbulb
Memories Although flashbulb memories are very detailed and individuals reciting the details are very confident of their accuracy, it might surprise you to learn that they are not necessarily more accurate than many other memories. For example, researchers examined how university students remembered the September 11, 2001, attacks in comparison to an
emotional but more mundane event (Talarico & Rubin, 2003). On September 12, 2001, they asked students to describe the events surrounding the moment they heard about the attacks. For a comparison event, they asked students to describe something memorable from the preceding weekend, just two or three days before the attacks. Over
several months, the students were asked to recall details of both events, and the researchers compared the accuracy of the two memories. Although their memory for both events was fading at the same rate and they were equal in accuracy, the students acknowledged the decline in memory only for the mundane events. They continued to feel highly confident in their memories surrounding the September 11 attacks, when, in fact, those memories were not any more accurate. The same pattern has been found for other major flashbulb events, such as the 1986 space
shuttle Challenger explosion and the verdict in the infamous 1995 murder trial of former NFL star and actor O. J. Simpson (Neisser & Harsch, 1992; Schmolk et al., 2000).
Module 7.2b Quiz:
Emotional Memories
Know . . . 1. are extremely vivid and detailed memories about an event.
A. Flashbulb memories B. Deep memories C. Rehearsal memories D. Semantic memories
Understand . . . 2. One study had participants view tapes of dental surgery after studying a
word list. This study concluded that
A. emotional videos have no effect on memory. B. emotional videos can enhance memory, but only for material
related to the video itself.
C. emotional videos can enhance memory even for unrelated material.
D. emotional videos can enhance memory for related material, while reducing memory for unrelated material.
Analyze . . . 3. Which statement best sums up the status of flashbulb memories?
A. Due to the emotional strain of the event, flashbulb memories are largely inaccurate.
B. Recall for only physical details is highly accurate. C. Both emotion and physical details are remembered very
accurately.
D. Over time, memory for details decays, similar to what happens with non-flashbulb memories.
Forgetting and Remembering
Have you ever had the experience of studying intensely for an exam, writing it, and then forgetting almost everything as soon as you walked out of the exam room? This phenomenon is quite common, particularly if you did all of your studying the night before (or morning of) the exam. Forgetting information is probably a good thing, at least if it occurs in moderation. We don’t need to remember every detail about every day of our lives. Instead, we want to have some control over what we do remember, thus allowing us to keep the useful information (e.g., terms for an exam) and deleting the less useful information (e.g., the details of a conversation you overheard on the bus). Of course, if we had that type of control, there would be no need to study the intricacies of why we remember and forget things. As you will see, this issue has been researched extensively.
The Forgetting Curve: How Soon We Forget . . .
It might seem odd that the first research on remembering was actually a documentation of how quickly people forget. However, this approach does make sense: Without knowledge of forgetting, it is difficult to ascertain how well we can remember. This early work was conducted by Hermann Ebbinghaus, whom
many psychologists consider the founder of memory research. Ebbinghaus (1885) was his own research participant in his studies; these experiments
involved him studying hundreds of nonsense syllables for later memory tests. His rationale was that because none of the syllables had any meaning, none of them should have been easier to remember based on past experiences. Ebbinghaus studied lists of these syllables until he could repeat them twice. He then tested himself repeatedly—this is where his persistence really shows—day after day.
How soon do we forget? The data indicated that Ebbinghaus forgot about half of a list within an hour. If Ebbinghaus had continued to forget at that rate, the rest of the list should be lost after two hours, but that was not the case. After a day, he could generally remember one-third of the material, and he could still recall
between 20–25% of the words after a week. The graph in Figure 7.19 shows the basic pattern in his test results, which has come to be known as a forgetting curve. It clearly shows that most forgetting occurs right away, and that the rate of forgetting eventually slows to the point where one does not seem to forget at all. These results have stood the test of time. In the century after Ebbinghaus conducted his research, more than 200 articles were published in psychological
journals that fit Ebbinghaus’s forgetting curve (Rubin & Wenzel, 1996). In fact, one study demonstrated that this forgetting curve applies to information learned
over 50 years before (see Figure 7.20 ; Bahrick, 1984).
Figure 7.19 Ebbinghaus’s Forgetting Curve This graph reveals Ebbinghaus’s results showing the rate at which he forgot a series of nonsense syllables. You can see that there is a steep decline in
performance within the first day and that the rate of forgetting levels off over time. Source: Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology, Hermann Ebbinghaus (1885). Translated by Henry A. Ruger &
Clara E. Bussenius (1913). Originally published in New York by Teachers College, Columbia University.
Figure 7.20 Bahrick’s Long-Term Forgetting Curve This forgetting curve depicts the rate at which adults forgot the foreign language they took in high school. Compared to new graduates, those tested three years later forgot much of what they learned. After that, however, test scores stabilized, just as Ebbinghaus’s did a century earlier. Source: From Bahrick, H. P. (1984). Semantic memory content in permastore: Fifty years of memory for Spanish learned in
school. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 113 (1), 1–29. American Psychological Association.
Given that the forgetting curve has been documented in hundreds of experiments, it seems inevitable that we will forget most of the information that we attempt to encode. However, as you have undoubtedly learned over the course of your studies, there are techniques that will allow you to improve your memory so that the forgetting curve is not as steep.
Mnemonics: Improving Your Memory Skills
At the beginning of this module, you read about the poet Simonides and his ability to use mental imagery to improve his memory, thus allowing him to identify the remains of people crushed under a collapsed roof. Simonides was using a
primitive type of mnemonic —a technique intended to improve memory for specific information. As you will see in this section, there are a number of different mnemonics that could be used to improve memory, something that might be of interest to overwhelmed students.
The technique that Simonides was using is known as the method of loci
(pronounced “LOW-sigh”), a mnemonic that connects words to be remembered to locations along a familiar path. To use the method of loci, one must first imagine a route that has landmarks or easily identifiable spaces—for example, the things you pass on your way from your home to a friend’s house or the seats around a dinner table. Once the path is identified, the learner takes a moment to visually relate the first word on the list to the first location encountered. For example, if you need to remember to pick up noodles, milk, and soap from the store and the first thing you pass on the way to your friend’s house is an intersection with a stop sign, you might picture the intersection littered with noodles, and so on down the list. The image doesn’t need to be realistic—it just needs to be distinct enough to be memorable. When it is time to recall the items, the learner simply imagines the familiar drive, identifying the items to be purchased as they relate to each location along the path.
However, the method of loci can become a bit cumbersome when a person has to remember hundreds of different facts, as occurs for university exams. A more
practical mnemonic is the use of acronyms , pronounceable words whose letters represent the initials of an important phrase or set of items. For example, the word “scuba” came into being with the invention of the self-contained underwater breathing apparatus. “Roy G. Biv” gives you the colours of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. A related mnemonic,
the first-letter technique , uses the first letters of a set of items to spell out words that form a sentence. It is like an acronym, but it tends to be used when the first letters do not spell a pronounceable word (see Figure 7.21 ). One well-known example is “Every Good Boy Does Fine” for the five lines on the
treble clef in musical notation. Another is “My Very Excited Mother Just Served Us Nine Pies” for the nine planets in the solar system (Pluto is now a “dwarf planet”). These types of mnemonic techniques work by organizing the information into a pattern that is easier to remember than the original information. Acronyms have a meaning of their own, so the learner gets the benefit of both elaborative rehearsal and deeper processing.
Figure 7.21 The First-Letter Technique Students of biology often use mnemonics, such as this example of the first letter technique, which helps students remember the taxonomic system.
The method of loci relies on mental imagery of a familiar location or path, like this path that students take to class three times a week.
Lori Howard/Shutterstock
A number of mnemonic devices are based on the premise of dual coding. Dual coding occurs when information is stored in more than one form—such as a verbal description and a visual image, or a description and a sound—and it
regularly produces stronger memories than the use of one form alone (Clark & Paivio, 1991). Dual coding leads to the information receiving deeper, as opposed to shallow, processing; this is because the additional sensory representations create a larger number of memory associations. This leads to a greater number of potential retrieval cues that can be accessed later. For example, most children growing up in North America learned the alphabet with the help of a song. In fact, even adults find themselves humming portions of that song when alphabetizing documents (you’ll probably do it too if asked which letter comes after “k”). Both the visual “A-B-C-D” and the musical “eh-bee-see- dee” are encoded together, making memory easier than if you were simply given
visual information to remember (e.g., “ ”, which is ABCD in the meaningless “wingdings2” font). The simplest explanation for the dual-coding advantage is that twice as much information is stored.
The application of mnemonic strategies can be found in restaurants where servers are not allowed to write out orders. These servers use a variety of the techniques discussed in this chapter. Some use chunking strategies, such as remembering soft drinks for a group of three customers, and cocktails for the other four. They also use the method of loci to link faces with positions at the table. In one study, a waiter was able to recall as many as 20 dinner orders
(Ericsson & Polson, 1988). He used the method of loci by linking food type (starch, beef, or fish) with a table location, and he used acronyms to help with encoding salad dressing choices. Thus RaVoSe for a party of three would be ranch, vinegar and oil, and sesame. Servers, as well as memory researchers, will tell you that the worst thing restaurant patrons can do is switch seats, as it completely disrupts the mnemonic devices being used to remember the order
(Bekinschtein et al., 2008).
While these mnemonic devices can help with rote memorization, they may not
necessarily improve your understanding of material. Researchers have begun to examine other memory boosters that may offer more benefits understanding and
retaining information. For example, some research has shown that desirable difficulties can aid learning. These techniques make studying slower and more effortful, but result in better overall remembering. For instance, in Module 1.1 you read about the benefits of spreading out study sessions rather than cramming for an exam in one long session (spaced vs. massed learning). When you space out your sessions, it is likely that you will forget some of the items
from the previous study session (Smolen et al., 2016). As a result, you’ll reread those notes and study them in more depth, a behaviour that will improve your chances of remembering the information later. Studying material in varying orders has a similar effect.
Another popular approach to studying is to use flashcards. Although psychologists have begun to understand how this process benefits students, they also have identified a few pitfalls that can hinder its effects. First is the spacing effect. When studying with flashcards, it is better to use one big stack rather than several smaller stacks; using the entire deck helps take advantage of the effect of spacing the cards. A second potential problem is the fact that students become overconfident and drop flashcards as soon as they believe they have learned the material. In reality, doing so seems to reduce the benefits of overlearning the material (making it more difficult to forget) and spacing out
cards in the deck (Kornell, 2009; Kornell & Bjork, 2007). No matter how you study, you should take advantage of the testing effect , the finding that taking practice tests can improve exam performance, even without additional studying. In fact, researchers have directly compared testing to additional studying and have found that, in some cases, testing actually improves memory more
(Roediger et al., 2010). That’s why psychology textbooks such as this one include quizzes and online tests.
Module 7.2c Quiz:
Forgetting and Remembering
Know . . .
1. Dual coding seems to help memory by A. allowing for maintenance rehearsal. B. ensuring that the information is encoded in multiple ways. C. ensuring that the information is encoded on two separate
occasions.
D. duplicating the rehearsal effect.
Apply . . . 2. If you are preparing for an exam by using flashcards, you will probably
find that you are more confident about some of the items than others. To improve your exam performance, you should
A. drop the cards you already know. B. keep the cards in the deck even if you feel like you know them. C. use maintenance rehearsal. D. use the method of loci.
3. If you wanted to remember a grocery list using the method of loci, you should
A. imagine the items on the list on your path through the grocery store.
B. match rhyming words to each item on your list. C. repeat the list to yourself over and over again. D. tell a story using the items from the list.
Module 7.2 Summary
acronym
context-dependent memory
deep processing
dual coding
Know . . . the key terminology related to forgetting, encoding, and retrieval.
7.2a
elaborative rehearsal
encoding specificity principle
first-letter technique
flashbulb memory
maintenance rehearsal
method of loci
mnemonic
mood-dependent memory
recall
recognition
self-reference effect
state-dependent memory
shallow processing
testing effect
Generally speaking, deeper processing makes things more likely to be remembered. Greater depth of processing may be achieved by elaborating on the meaning of the information, through increased emotional content, and through coding in images and sounds simultaneously.
Try putting some tools from the chapter into practice. One mnemonic device that might be helpful is the method of loci.
Understand . . . how the type of cognitive processing employed can affect the chances of remembering what you encounter.
7.2b
Apply . . . what you have learned to improve your ability to memorize information.
7.2c
Apply Activity Have someone create a shopping list for you while you prepare yourself by imagining a familiar path (perhaps the route you take to class or work). When you are ready to learn the list, read a single item on the list and imagine it at some point on the path. Feel free to exaggerate the images in your memory— each item could become the size of a stop sign or might take on the appearance of a particular building or tree that you pass by. Continue this pattern for each individual item until you have learned the list. Then try what Ebbinghaus did: Test your memory over the course of a few days. How do you think you will do?
Both personal experiences and controlled laboratory studies demonstrate that emotion enhances memory. However, as we learned in the case of flashbulb memories, even memories for details of significant events decline over time, although confidence in memory accuracy typically remains very high.
Analyze . . . whether emotional memories are more accurate than non-emotional ones.
7.2d
Module 7.3 Constructing and Reconstructing Memories
RiceWithSugar/Shutterstock.com
Learning Objectives
Know . . . the key terminology used in discussing how memories are organized and constructed. Understand . . . how schemas serve as frameworks for encoding and constructing memories. Understand . . . how psychologists can produce false memories in the laboratory.
7.3a
7.3b
7.3c
In 1992, the Saskatchewan town of Martensville was rocked by a sex abuse scandal. A complaint about a suspicious diaper rash from a parent of a toddler attending a local daycare led to a police investigation. After repeated and extensive interviewing, the children claimed to remember astonishing things including extensive sexual abuse, human sacrifice, a “Devil Church,” and a Satanic cult known as The Brotherhood of the Ram. The owners of the daycare along with several other individuals— including five police officers—were eventually arrested. However, a closer examination of the police investigation identified some serious problems. Expert witnesses noted that the questions used in the interviews were leading and suggestive. Upon further examination, many charges were dropped. In fact, only one of the accused was convicted of a crime (molestation). The Saskatchewan government has since paid out millions of dollars to the other accused individuals whose lives were affected by these investigations.
While certainly well-meaning, the investigators—who were not trained to interview child witnesses—forgot a critical piece of information: Memories are not like photographs perfectly depicting an event from our past. Instead, they are reconstructed each time we retrieve them, and can therefore be altered by a number of different factors.
Focus Questions
1. How is it possible to remember events that never happened? 2. Do these false memories represent memory problems, or are they
just a normal part of remembering?
The true story that opened this module demonstrates that our memories are not
Apply . . . what you have learned to judge the reliability of eyewitness testimony. Analyze . . . the arguments in the “recovered memory” debate.
7.3d
7.3e
perfect. In a less disturbing example, cognitive psychologist and renowned memory researcher Ulric Neisser once recounted what he was doing on December 7, 1941, the day Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. Neisser was sitting in the living room listening to a baseball game on the radio when the program was
interrupted with the news (Neisser, 2000). Or was he? He had certainly constructed a very distinct memory for this emotional event, but something must have gone wrong. Baseball season does not last through December. As this example demonstrates, even memory researchers are prone to misremembering. In this module we will examine how such misremembering occurs and what it says about how memories are constructed . . . and reconstructed.
How Memories Are Organized and Constructed
Think about the last time you read a novel or watched a film. What do you recall about the story? If you have a typical memory, you will forget the proper names of locations and characters quickly, but you will be able to remember the basic
plot for a very long time (Squire, 1989; Stanhope et al., 1993). The plot may be referred to as the gist of the story and it impacts us much more than characters’ names, which are often just details. As it turns out, much of the way we store memories depends on our tendency to remember the gist of things.
The Schema: An Active Organization Process
The gist of a story gives us “the big picture,” or a general structure for the memory; details can be added around that structure. Gist is often influenced by schemas , organized clusters of memories that constitute one’s knowledge or beliefs about events, objects, and ideas. Whenever we encounter familiar events or objects, these schemas become active and affect what we expect, what we pay attention to, and what we remember. Because we use these patterns automatically, it may be difficult to understand what they are, even though we
use them throughout our lives. Here is an example; read the following passage through one time:
The procedure is quite simple. First, you arrange things into different groups. Of course,
one pile may be sufficient, depending on how much there is to do. If you have to go
somewhere else due to lack of facilities, that is the next step; otherwise, you are pretty
well set. It is important not to overdo things. That is, it is better to do too few things at
once than too many. At first the whole procedure will seem complicated. Soon,
however, it will become just another facet of life. After the procedure is completed, one
arranges the materials into different groups again. Then they can be put into their
appropriate places. Eventually they will be used once more, and the whole cycle will
have to be repeated (Bransford & Johnson, 1973).
At this point, if you were to write down the details of the paragraph solely from memory, how well do you think you would do? Most people do not have high expectations for themselves, but they would blame it on how vague the paragraph seems. Now, what if we tell you the passage is about doing laundry? If you read the paragraph a second time, you should see that it is easier to understand, as well as to remember.
Working the Scientific Literacy Model How Schemas Influence Memory
Although schemas are used to explain memory, they can be used to explain many other phenomena as well, such as the way we perceive, remember, and think about people and situations. In each case, schemas provide a ready-made structure that allows us to process new information more quickly than we could without this mental shortcut. This makes schemas extremely useful. But, are they accurate?
What do we know about schemas? The laundry demonstration tells us quite a bit about schemas and
memory. First, most of us have our own personal schema about the process of doing laundry. Refer to the definition of schema—a cluster of memories that constitutes your knowledge about an event (gathering clothes, going to the laundromat), object (what clothes are, what detergent is), or idea (why clean clothes are desirable). When you read the paragraph the first time, you probably did not know what the objects and events were. However, when you were told it was about doing laundry, it
activated your laundry schema—your personal collection of concepts and memories. Once your schema was activated, you were prepared to make sense of the story and could likely fill in the gaps of your memory for the passage with stored knowledge from your schema in long-term memory (LTM). Second, we should point out that schemas are involved in all three stages of memory: They guide what we attend to during encoding, organize stored memories, and serve as cues when it comes time to retrieve information.
How can science explain schemas?
Research indicates that we remember events using constructive memory , a process by which we first recall a generalized schema and then add in specific details (Scoboria et al., 2006; Silva et al., 2006). Where do these schemas come from? They appear to be products of culture and experience (e.g., Ross & Wang, 2010). For example, individuals within a culture tend to have schemas related to gender roles—men and women are each assumed to engage in certain jobs and to behave in certain ways. Even if an individual realizes that these schemas are not 100% accurate (in fact, they can be far from accurate in some cases), he or she is likely to engage in schematic processing when having difficulty remembering something specific.
A study by Heather Kleider and her associates (2008) demonstrates how schemas influence memory quite well. These investigators had research participants view photographs of a
handyman engaged in schema-consistent behaviour (e.g., working on plumbing) as well as a schema-inconsistent tasks (e.g., folding a baby’s clothing). Participants also viewed images of a stay-at-home mother performing schema-consistent (e.g., feeding a baby) and schema-inconsistent tasks (e.g., hammering a nail). Immediately after viewing the photographs, participants were quite successful at remembering correctly who had performed what actions. However, after two days, what types of memory mistakes do you think the researchers found? As you
can see from Figure 7.22 , individuals began making mistakes, and these mistakes were consistent with gender schemas.
Figure 7.22 Schemas Affect How We Encode and Remember
In this study, memory was accurate when tested immediately, as shown by the small proportion of errors on the “immediate” side of the graph. After two days, however, participants misremembered seeing the schema-inconsistent tasks in line with stereotypes. For example, they misremembered the stay-at-home
mother stirring cake batter even if they had actually seen the handyman doing it. Source: Data from Kleider, H., Pezdek, K., Goldinger, S., & Kirk, A. (2008). Schema–driven source
misattribution errors: Remembering the expected from a witnessed event. Applied Cognitive
Psychology, 22 (1), 1–20.
Can we critically evaluate the concept of a schema? The concept of a schema is certainly useful in describing our methods of mental organization, but some psychologists remain skeptical of its validity. After all, you cannot record brain activity
and expect to see a particular schema, and individuals generally are not aware that they are using schematic processing. It may even be the case that what we assume are schemas about laundry, gender, or ourselves are different every time we think about these topics. If that is the case, then describing this tendency as a schema might even be misleading.
However, recent brain-imaging studies suggest that schemas do exist and likely help with the process of memory consolidation
(Wang & Morris, 2010). Both encoding and retrieving information that was consistent with a schema learned during an experiment led to greater activity in a network involving parts of the medial temporal lobes (including the hippocampus) and the frontal lobes
(van Kesteren, Fernandez, et al., 2010; van Kesteren, Rijpkema, et al., 2010; see Figure 7.23 ). Additionally, adding new information to an existing schema actually changes the expression of genes in the frontal lobes in order to strengthen
connections between this region and the hippocampus (Tse et al., 2011). Thus, while we cannot identify the neural correlates for a specific schema like that for doing laundry, it is possible to see how schemas influence brain activity while new information is encoded and entered into the structure of our LTM.
Figure 7.23 A Brain Network Related to Processing Schemas
Brain-imaging data suggest that encoding information consistent with a schema activates a network involving structures in the medial temporal lobe (including our friend, the hippocampus) and parts of the frontal lobes. Source: Figure 5 from van Kesteren et al., (2013), Trends in Neuroscience, p. 2358.
Biopsychosocial Perspectives Your
Earliest Memories
Think back to the earliest memory you can recall: How old were you? It is likely that you do not have any personal or
autobiographical memories from before your third birthday. Psychologists have been trying to explain this
phenomenon—sometimes called infantile amnesia.
Research indicates that self-schemas begin to develop
around the ages of 18 to 24 months (Howe, 2003). Without these schemas, it is difficult and maybe even impossible to organize and encode memories about the self. This is not a universal phenomenon, however. Other researchers taking a cross-cultural perspective have found that a sense of self emerges earlier among European Americans than among people living in eastern Asia, which correlates with earlier ages of first memories
among European Americans (Fivush & Nelson, 2004; Ross & Wang, 2010). Why might this difference arise? The European American emphasis on developing a sense of self encourages thinking about personal experiences, which increases the likelihood that personal events—such as your third birthday party with that scary drunken clown, or getting chased by a dog—will be remembered. In contrast, Asian cultures tend to emphasize social harmony and collectiveness over individualism, resulting in a schema that is more socially integrated than in Westerners. This may explain the slightly later onset of autobiographical memory in Asian children. It will be interesting to see if this cultural difference changes as Asian cultures become more “Westernized.”
Do these findings mean that we could get infants to remember early life events by teaching them to talk about themselves at an early age? This is not likely. The brains of young children are still developing, so the neural architecture necessary to form stable schemas is not yet
in place (Newcombe et al., 2000).
Why is this relevant?
An important aspect of schema-driven processing has to do with how we process information about ourselves. Clinical psychology researchers have become particularly concerned with the ways in
which these self-schemas may contribute to psychological problems. Consider a person with clinical depression—a condition that involves negative emotion, lack of energy, self- doubt, and self-blame. An individual with depression is likely to have a very negative self-schema, which means that he will pay attention to things that are consistent with the depressive symptoms, and will be more likely to recall events and feelings that are consistent with this schema. Thus the schema contributes to a pattern of thinking and focusing on negative thoughts. Fortunately, researchers have been able to target these schemas in psychotherapy. The evidence shows that by changing their self-schema, individuals are better able to recover
from even very serious bouts of depression (Dozois et al., 2009).
Schemas about the self are based on past experiences and are used to organize the encoding of self-relevant information in a way that can influence our
responses (Markus, 1977). But self-schemas may serve an additional role during development. Some evidence suggests that the ability to form schemas, particularly self-schemas, plays a critical role in our ability to form memories about our lives.
Module 7.3a Quiz:
How Memories Are Organized and Constructed
Know . . . 1. Schemas appear to affect which of the following stages of memory?
A. Encoding B. Storage C. Retrieval
D. All of these stages
2. The act of remembering through recalling a framework and then adding specific details is known as .
A. constructive memory B. confabulation C. schematic interpretation D. distinctiveness
Understand . . . 3. Information that does not fit our expectations for a specific context is
likely to be forgotten if
A. it is extremely unusual. B. it only fits our expectations for another completely different
context.
C. it is unexpected, but really not that unusual. D. it is schema consistent.
Memory Reconstruction
You’ve all heard the cliché, “You are what you eat.” But, it’s also becoming
increasingly clear to psychologists that “You are what you remember” (Wilson & Ross, 2003). As you read earlier in this module, our memories are organized to a large degree by our schemas, including self-schemas. There is no guarantee, however, that these schemas are 100% accurate. In fact, different motivations can influence which schemas are accessible to us in a given moment, thereby biasing our memory reconstruction. As a result of these motivational influences, the past that we remember is actually influenced by our mental state and by our
view of ourselves in the present (Albert, 1977).
This type of biasing effect was nicely demonstrated in a study conducted by
researchers at Concordia University and the University of Waterloo (Conway & Ross, 1984). The researchers had one group of participants complete a study
skills course while another group remained on a waiting list. The course itself proved completely ineffective, at least in terms of improving study skills. The course did have an interesting effect on memory, however. Participants who completed the study course rated their previous study skills lower than they had rated them prior to taking the course; participants on the waiting list rated their study skills as being unchanged. Therefore, the study course participants revised their memories of their past abilities in a way that allowed them to feel as though they benefited from the course. This memory bias allowed them to feel as though they were improving over time, a bias that almost all of us have about ourselves
(Ross & Wilson, 2000).
The results of such studies demonstrate that our memories are not stable, but
instead change over time. Indeed, we have all experienced a false memory , remembering events that did not occur, or incorrectly recalling details of an event. It is important to remember that these incorrect memories do not necessarily indicate a dysfunction of memory, but rather reflect normal memory processes—which are inherently imperfect. As you read in the discussion of schemas, the elements that comprise a memory must be reconstructed each time that memory is retrieved. This reconstruction is influenced by the demands of the current situation. Psychologists have identified several ways in which our memories can be biased, and have explored how these biases can have many real-world implications, such as in the legal system.
The Perils of Eyewitness Testimony
Have you ever witnessed a crime or even a minor traffic accident? When asked later about what you witnessed, how accurate were your reports? Most of us feel quite confident in our ability to retrieve this type of information. However, psychologists have shown that a number of minor factors can dramatically influence the details of our “memories.”
In one classic study, Elizabeth Loftus and John Palmer (1974) showed undergraduate research participants film clips of traffic accidents. Participants were asked to write down a description of what they had seen, and were then asked a specific question: “About how fast were the cars going when they
smashed into each other?” However, the exact wording of this question varied across experimental conditions. For some participants, the word “smashed” was replaced by “collided,” “bumped,” “contacted,” or “hit.” The results of the study were stunning—simply changing one verb in the sentence produced large
differences in the estimated speed of the vehicles (see Figure 7.24 ). At one extreme, the word “smashed” led to an estimate of 65.2 km/h. At the low end of the spectrum, the word “contacted” led to estimates of 51.2 km/h. So, changing the verb altered the remembered speed of the vehicles by 14 km/h. In a follow- up study, Loftus and Palmer also found that participants in the “smashed” condition were more likely to insert false details such as the presence of broken glass into their accident reports. This study was a powerful demonstration of the effect of question wording on memory retrieval and provided police with important information about the need for caution when questioning witnesses.
Figure 7.24 The Power of a Word Simply changing the wording of a question altered participants’ recollections of a filmed traffic accident. All participants viewed the same filmed traffic accidents and all participants received the identical question with the exception of one key verb: smashed, collided, bumped, hit, or contacted. Source: Based on data from Loftus, E. F., & Palmer, J. C. (1974). Reconstruction of automobile destruction: An example of
the interaction between language and memory. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 13, 585–589 (p. 586.).
Another factor that can alter memories of an event—and that has implications for the legal system—is the information that is encoded after the event has occurred, such as rumours, news reports, or hearing about other people’s perceptions of the event. If such information was accurate, it could improve people’s memories; however, this type of information is not always accurate, which explains why jury members are asked to avoid reading about or watching TV reports related to the case with which they are involved. Psychologists have shown that this legal procedure is a wise one, as a number of studies have
demonstrated the misinformation effect , when information occurring after an event becomes part of the memory for that event. In the original studies of this topic (Loftus, 1975), researchers attempted to use the misinformation effect to change the details of people’s memories. For example, in one study, students viewed a videotape of a staged car crash. In the experimental conditions, participants were asked about an object that was not in the video, such as a yield sign (when in fact the scene had contained a stop sign). Later, when asked if they had seen a yield sign, participants in the experimental group were likely to say yes. As this experiment demonstrates, one can change the details of a memory by asking a leading question.
Children are particularly susceptible to misinformation effects and to the effects
of a question’s wording (Bruck & Ceci, 1999). In one study, five- and six-year- old children watched a janitor (really an actor) named Chester as he cleaned some dolls and other toys in a playroom. For half of the children, his behaviour was innocent and simply involved him cleaning the toys. For the other children, Chester’s behaviour seemed abusive and involved him treating the toys roughly. The children were later questioned by two interviewers who were (1) accusatory (implying that Chester had been playing with the dolls when he should have been working), (2) innocent (implying that Chester was simply cleaning the dolls), or (3) neutral (not implying anything about Chester’s behaviour). When the interviewer’s tone matched what the children saw, such as innocent questioning about Chester when he treated the toys nicely or accusatory questioning when Chester was rough with the toys, the children’s reports of the behaviour were quite accurate. However, when the interview technique did not match the observed behaviour (e.g., accusatory questioning when Chester had simply cleaned the toys), the children’s responses matched the interviewer’s tone. In
other words, the tone of the interviewer altered the details of the information that
the children retrieved and reported (Thompson et al., 1997).
Participants in one study viewed the top photo and later were asked about the “yield sign,” even though they saw a stop sign. This small bit of misinformation was enough to get many participants to falsely remember seeing a yield sign. Similarly, participants who first viewed the bottom photo could be led to misremember seeing a stop sign with a single misleading question. Dr. Elizabeth Loftus
Similar to adults, children are also dependent on schemas. In one study, researchers told children at school about their clumsy friend Sam Stone. On
numerous occasions, they told funny stories about Sam’s life, including the times he broke a Barbie doll and tore a sweater. Later, the children met “Sam Stone.” During his time in the classroom, he did not perform a single clumsy act. The following day, the teacher showed the children a torn book and a dirty teddy bear, but did not link Sam to these damaged items. When questioned a few weeks later, however, many of the three- and four-year-old children reported that Sam Stone had ruined these objects. Some even claimed to have witnessed
these acts themselves (Leichtman & Ceci, 1995). These findings should not lead us to ignore the eyewitness testimony of children; but, they should also remind us (and investigators) that memories—particularly those of children—are not stable and unchanging like a photograph. This research highlights how extremely important it is for legal professionals, such as the police, to practise investigative techniques that avoid biasing witnesses to crimes. Failure to do so could easily result in innocent people being convicted of crimes they did not commit, or conversely, guilty people being set free due to “reasonable doubt” because of questionable eyewitness testimony.
PSYCH@ Court: Is Eyewitness Testimony
Reliable? While trying to identify the individual responsible for a crime, investigators often present a lineup of a series of individuals (either in person or in photographs) and ask the eyewitness to identify the suspect. Given the constructive nature of memory, it should come as no surprise to hear that an eyewitness gets it wrong from time to time. The consequences of this kind of wrongful conviction are dire—an innocent person may go to jail while a potentially dangerous person stays free.
How can the science of memory improve this process? Here are the six main suggestions for reforming eyewitness identification procedures:
1. Employ double-blind procedures. Elsewhere in this book, we discussed how double-blind procedures help reduce experimenter bias. Similarly, a double-blind lineup (i.e., the investigator in the room with the eyewitness has no knowledge of
which person is the actual suspect) can prevent an investigator from biasing an eyewitness, either intentionally or accidentally.
2. Use appropriate instructions. For example, the investigator should include the statement, “The suspect might not be present in the lineup.” Eyewitnesses often assume the guilty person is in the lineup, so they are likely to choose a close match. This risk can be greatly reduced by instructing the eyewitness that the correct answer may be “none of the above.”
3. Compose the lineup carefully. The lineup should include individuals who match the eyewitness’s description of the perpetrator, not the investigator’s beliefs about the suspect.
4. Use sequential lineups. When an entire lineup is shown simultaneously, this may encourage the witness to assume one of the people is guilty, so they choose the best candidate. If the people in the lineup are presented one at a time, witnesses are less likely to pick out an incorrect suspect because they are willing to consider the next person in the sequence.
5. Require confidence statements. Eyewitness confidence can change as a result of an investigator’s response, or simply by seeing the same suspect in multiple lineups, neither of which make the testimony any more accurate. Therefore, confidence statements should be taken in the witness’s own words after an identification is made.
6. Record the procedures. Eyewitness researchers have identified at least a dozen specific things that can go wrong during identification procedures. By recording these procedures, expert witnesses can evaluate the reliability of testimony during hearings.
Recently, Canadian legal experts produced the 2011 Report of the Federal/Provincial/Territorial Heads of Prosecutions Subcommittee on the Prevention of Wrongful Convictions. This 233-page document presents recommendations to the legal community for the use of eyewitness testimony, among other investigative practices, and highlights the need for testimony from experts, including psychologists.
Imagination and False Memories
Because our memories are not always as accurate as we would like them to be, people use a number of techniques to try to help themselves retrieve information. One of these techniques is to imagine the situation that you are trying, but failing, to remember. However, although this strategy seems logical at first, the results of several studies suggest that the retrieved memories may not be very accurate. Research indicates that repeatedly imagining an action such as breaking a toothpick makes it very difficult for people to remember whether or not they
performed that action (Goff & Roediger, 1998). In fact, imagining events can often lead to imagination inflation , the increased confidence in a false memory of an event following repeated imagination of the event. The more readily and clearly we can imagine events, the more certain we are that the memories are accurate.
To study this effect, researchers created a list of events that may or may not have happened to the individuals in their study (e.g., got in trouble for calling 911, found a $10 bill in a parking lot). The volunteers were first asked to rate their confidence that the event happened. In sessions held over a period of days, participants were asked to imagine these events, until finally they were asked to rate their confidence again. For each item they were asked to imagine, repeated
imagination inflated their confidence in the memory of the event even if they initially reported that the event had not occurred (Garry et al., 1996; Garry & Polaschek, 2000).
Importantly, imagination inflation is very similar to guided imagery, a technique used by some clinicians (and some police investigators) to help people recover details of events that they are unable to remember. It involves a guide giving instructions to participants to imagine certain events. Like the misinformation effect, guided imagery can be used to alter memories for actual events, but it can also create entirely false memories. For example, in one experiment, volunteers were asked to imagine a procedure in which a nurse removed a sample of skin from a finger. Despite the fact that this is not a medical procedure and that it
almost certainly never occurred, individuals in the experimental group were more likely than those in the control group to report that this event had actually
happened to them (Mazzoni & Memon, 2003). In other words, attempting to imagine an event can implant new—and false—events into a person’s memory.
Creating False Memories in the Laboratory
Given that several research studies have shown that false memories are fairly easy to create, and given that such memories can have dramatic and tragic consequences when they appear in clinical or legal settings, it became important for researchers to develop techniques that would allow them to study false memories in more detail. The first of these techniques to be used was the
Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm (see Figure 7.25 ). In the DRM procedure , participants study a list of highly related words called semantic associates (which means they are associated by meaning). The word that would be the most obvious member of the list just happens to be missing. This missing
word is called the critical lure. What happens when the participants are given a memory test? A significant proportion of participants remember the critical lure,
even though it never appeared on the list (Deese, 1959; Roediger & McDermott, 1995). When individuals recall the critical lure, it is called an intrusion, because a false memory is sneaking into an existing memory.
Figure 7.25 A Sample Word List and Its Critical Lure for the DRM Procedure
The words on the left side are all closely related to the word “bread”—but “bread” does not actually appear on the list. People who study this list of words are very likely to misremember that “bread” was present. Source: From Roediger, H., & McDermott, K. (1995). Creating false memories: Remembering words not presented in lists.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 21, 803–814. American Psychological Association.
The fact that people make intrusion errors is not particularly surprising. However, the strength of the effect is astonishing. In routine studies, the DRM lures as many as 70% of the participants. The most obvious way to reduce this effect would be to simply explain the DRM procedure and warn participants that intrusions may occur. Although this approach has proved effective in reducing
intrusions, false memories still occur (Gallo et al., 1997). Obviously, intrusions are very difficult to prevent, but not because memory is prone to mistakes. In fact, memory is generally accurate and extremely efficient, given the millions of bits of information we encounter every day. Instead, the DRM effect reflects the fact that normal memory processes are constructive.
A second method of creating false memories in the laboratory comes from doctored photographs. For instance, researchers at the University of Victoria and their colleagues exposed undergraduate research participants to altered photographs showing the participant and his or her parent taking a ride on a hot-
air balloon, an event that did not actually occur (Wade et al., 2002). For this type of experiment to work, the volunteers in the study had to recruit the help of their family. Their parents provided pictures of the participant from early childhood, along with an explanation of the event, the location, and the people and objects in the photo. The researchers took one of the pictures and digitally cut and pasted it into a balloon ride. On three occasions the participants went through the set of pictures, the true originals plus the doctored photo, in a structured interview process (the kind designed to help police get more details from eyewitnesses). By the end of the third session, half the participants had some
memory for the balloon ride event, even though it never occurred (Wade et al., 2002).
Photographic images such as the ones used in the hot-air balloon study leave it
to the participant to fill in the gaps as to what “happened” on their balloon ride. Other researchers have gone so far as to create false videotaped evidence of an
event (R. Nash et al., 2009). For this method, a volunteer was videotaped watching a graduate student perform an action. The researchers also videotaped the graduate student performing an additional action that the volunteer did not witness. The videos were then spliced together to show the volunteer watching an event that she, in reality, did not actually see. Now imagine you were shown a video of yourself watching an action you had not seen before—would you believe it? In fact, a significant portion of the individuals did form memories of the events they had never witnessed. This type of false memory retrieval mirrors that created in the guided imagery exercises used in some clinical settings, a trend that sparked a very contentious debate in both the scientific and legal communities.
In one study of false memory, true photos were obtained from volunteers’ families (top), and were edited to look like a balloon ride (bottom). About half of the volunteers in this study came to recall some details of an event that never happened to them. Courtesy of K. Wade, M. Garry, J. Read, and S. Lindsay
The Danger of False Remembering
In the early 1990s, Beth Rutherford sought the help of her church counsellor to deal with personal issues. During their sessions, the counsellor managed to convince her that her father, a minister, had raped her. The memory was further elaborated so that she remembered becoming pregnant and that her father had forced her to undergo an abortion using a coat hanger. You can imagine what kind of effects this had on the family. Her father had little choice but to resign from his position, and his reputation was left in shambles. Although it can be difficult to prove some false memories, this incident is particularly disturbing
because it could have been supported by medical evidence. When a medical
investigation was finally conducted, absolutely no evidence was found that Beth
had ever been raped or that she had ever been pregnant (Loftus, 1997).
In this example, Beth’s therapist believed that Beth had experienced a recovered memory , a memory of a traumatic event that is suddenly recovered after blocking the memory of that event for a long period of time, often many years. However, the topic of recovered memories is a contentious one. In the past three decades, psychologists have performed a great deal of research investigating whether it is possible to suppress a memory and whether there are research tools available to help us distinguish between memories that are accurate and those that are not.
This idea that we suppress traumatic memories is popularly known as repression from Freudian psychoanalysis (see Module 12.3 ). According to this idea, a repressed memory could still affect other psychological processes, leading people to suffer in other ways such as experiencing depression. This school of thought suggests that if a repressed memory can be recovered, then a patient can find ways to cope with the trauma. Some therapists espouse this view and use techniques such as hypnosis and guided imagery to try to unearth repressed memories. However, given the research we have discussed about how false memories can be implanted through these types of techniques, there is an obvious danger in the use of these methods.
Can we suppress our memories of traumatic life events? As it turns out, it is
possible, although it is difficult to determine how common it is. In one survey study, researchers examined the testimony of people who had been imprisoned in Camp Erika, a Nazi concentration camp in The Netherlands, in the early 1940s
(Wagenaar & Groeneweg, 1990). Most of the prisoners were able to provide detailed information about their time in the concentration camp, but a minority of prisoners did not remember many emotional events during their imprisonment including the names and appearances of people who tortured them and the fact that they had witnessed murders! But, being able to suppress a horrific memory is very different from then recovering that memory years later.
Recovered memories, like many other types of long-term memory, are difficult to
study because one can rarely determine if they are true or false. This uncertainty
has led to the recovered memory controversy , a heated debate among psychologists about the validity of recovered memories (Davis & Loftus, 2009). On one side of the controversy are some clinical mental health workers (although certainly not the majority) who regularly attempt to recover memories they suspect have been repressed. On the opposing side are the many psychologists who point out that the techniques that might help “recover” a memory bear a striking resemblance to those that are used to create false memories in laboratory research; they often involve instructions to remember, attempts to
form images, and social reinforcement for reporting memories (Spanos et al., 1994). How can this disagreement be resolved?
One method is to use brain imaging to differentiate true and false memories. Psychologists have found that when people recount information that is true, the visual and other sensory areas of the brain become more active. When revealing falsely remembered information, these same individuals have much less activity in the sensory regions—the brain is not drawing on mental imagery because it
was not there in the first place (Dennis et al., 2012; Stark et al., 2010). Interestingly, these brain results do not always map onto the participants’ conscious memories of what they had seen. So, this method might be able to distinguish between true and false memories better than the participant himself
(M. K. Johnson et al., 2012). However, although these neuroimaging results are promising, these studies did not use stimuli that were as emotional as the recovered memories patients report. Therefore, as with most areas of psychology, much more research is needed in this controversial area.
Although this module provides some frightening examples of how malleable our memories are, there is actually something inspirational about these results. We construct our own memories and, as a result, our own reality. Therefore, we have the power to focus our memories on the positive experiences of our lives, or on the negative ones. It’s up to you—remember that.
Module 7.3b Quiz:
Memory Reconstruction
Know . . . 1. If you are presented with a list of 15 words, all of which have something
in common, you are most likely participating in a study focusing on
. A. misinformation effects B. the DRM procedure C. imagination inflation D. repression
2. Which of the following effects demonstrates that one can change the details of a memory just by phrasing a question a certain way?
A. Misinformation effects B. The DRM procedure C. Imagination inflation D. Repression
Apply . . . 3. Jonathan witnessed a robbery. The police asked him to identify the
perpetrator from a lineup. You can be most confident in his selection if
A. the authorities smiled after Jonathan’s response so that he would feel comfortable during the lineup procedure.
B. the authorities had the lineup presented all at the same time so Jonathan could compare the individuals.
C. the lineup included individuals of different races and ethnicities. D. Jonathan was given the option to not choose any of the people
from the lineup if no one fit his memory.
Analyze . . . 4. Psychologists who study false memories have engaged in a debate over
the validity of recovered memories. Why are they skeptical about claims of recovered memories?
A. They have never experienced recovered memories themselves. B. Many of the techniques used to recover memories in therapy bear
a striking similarity to the techniques used to create false
memories in research.
C. Brain scans can easily distinguish between true and false memories.
D. Scientists have proven that it is impossible to remember something that you have once forgotten.
Module 7.3 Summary
constructive memory
DRM procedure
false memory
imagination inflation
misinformation effect
recovered memory
recovered memory controversy
schema
Schemas guide our attention, telling us what to expect in certain circumstances. They organize long-term memories and provide us with cues when it comes time to retrieve those memories.
Psychologists have found that a number of factors contribute to the construction of false memories, including misinformation, imagination inflation, and the
Know . . . the key terminology used in discussing how memories are organized and constructed.
7.3a
Understand . . . how schemas serve as frameworks for encoding and constructing memories.
7.3b
Understand . . . how psychologists can produce false memories in the laboratory.
7.3c
semantic similarities used in the DRM procedure.
Eyewitness testimony is absolutely crucial to the operation of most legal systems, but how reliable is it? Since 1989, 225 U.S.-based cases of exonerations (convictions that have been overturned due to new evidence after the trial) have been made possible thanks to the help of The Innocence Project. In these cases, the original convictions were based on the following information (some cases included multiple sources):
Eyewitness misidentification (173 cases) Improper or unvalidated forensics (116 cases) False confessions (51 cases) Questionable information from informants (36 cases)
Apply Activity What percentage of the exonerations mentioned above involved eyewitness mistakes? What do these data suggest about research on eyewitness testimony?
You should first understand the premise behind the idea of recovered memories: Some people believe that if a memory is too painful, it might be blocked from conscious recollection, only to be recovered later through therapeutic techniques. Others argue that it is difficult to prove that a “recovered” memory is actually real, as opposed to falsely constructed. Given how easy it is to create false memories, they argue, any memory believed to be recovered should be viewed with skepticism.
Apply . . . what you have learned to judge the reliability of eyewitness testimony.
7.3d
Analyze . . . the arguments in the “recovered memory” debate.7.3e
Chapter 8 Thought and Language
8.1 The Organization of Knowledge Concepts and Categories 315
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Priming and Semantic Networks 318
Module 8.1a Quiz 319
Memory, Culture, and Categories 319
Module 8.1b Quiz 323
Module 8.1 Summary 323
8.2 Problem Solving, Judgment, and Decision Making Defining and Solving Problems 325
Module 8.2a Quiz 328
Judgment and Decision Making 328
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Maximizing and Satisficing in Complex Decisions 332
Module 8.2b Quiz 334
Module 8.2 Summary 335
8.3 Language and Communication
What Is Language? 337
Module 8.3a Quiz 341
The Development of Language 341
Module 8.3b Quiz 344
Genes, Evolution, and Language 344
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Genes and Language 344
Module 8.3c Quiz 348
Module 8.3 Summary 348
Module 8.1 The Organization of Knowledge
Dmitry Vereshchagin/Fotolia
Learning Objectives
Know . . . the key terminology associated with concepts and categories. Understand . . . theories of how people organize their knowledge about the world. Understand . . . how experience and culture can shape the way we organize our knowledge. Apply . . . your knowledge to identify prototypical examples.
8.1a 8.1b
8.1c
8.1d
When Edward regained consciousness in the hospital, his family immediately noticed that something was wrong. The most obvious problem was that he had difficulty recognizing faces, a relatively common disorder known as prosopagosia. As the doctors performed more testing, it became apparent that Edward had other cognitive problems as well. Edward had difficulty recognizing objects—but not all objects. Instead, he couldn’t distinguish between different vegetables even though he could use language to describe their appearance. His ability to recognize most other types of objects seemed normal.
Neurological patients like Edward may seem unrelated to your own life. However, for specific categories of visual information to be lost, they must have been stored in similar areas of the brain before brain damage occurred. Therefore, these cases give us some insight into how the brain stores and organizes the information that we have encoded into memory.
Focus Questions
1. How do people form easily recognizable categories from complex information?
2. How does culture influence the ways in which we categorize information?
Each of us has amassed a tremendous amount of knowledge in the course of our lifetime. Indeed, it is impossible to put a number on just how many facts each of us knows. Imagine trying to record everything you ever learned about the world—how many books could you fill? Instead of asking how much we know, psychologists are interested in how we keep track of it all. In this module, we will explore what those processes are like and how they work. We will start by learning about the key terminology before presenting theories about how
Analyze . . . the claim that the language we speak determines how we think.
8.1e
knowledge is stored over the long term.
Concepts and Categories
A concept is the mental representation of an object, event, or idea. Although it seems as though different concepts should be distinct from each other, there are actually very few independent concepts. You do not have just one concept
for chair, one for table, and one for sofa. Instead, each of these concepts can be divided into smaller groups with more precise labels, such as arm chair or coffee table. Similarly, all of these items can be lumped together under the single label, furniture. Psychologists use the term categories to refer to these clusters of interrelated concepts. We form these groups using a process called categorization.
Classical Categories: Definitions and Rules
Categorization is difficult to define in that it involves elements of perception
(Chapter 4 ), memory (Chapter 7 ), and “higher-order” processes like decision making (Module 8.2 ) and language (Module 8.3 ). The earliest approach to the study of categories is referred to as classical categorization ; this theory claims that objects or events are categorized according to a certain set of rules or by a specific set of features—something similar to a dictionary definition (Lakoff & Johnson, 1999; Rouder & Ratcliffe, 2006). Definitions do a fine job of explaining how people categorize items, at least in certain situations. For example, a triangle can be defined as “a figure
(usually, a plane rectilinear figure) having three angles and three sides” (Oxford English Dictionary, 2011). Using this definition, you should find it easy to categorize the triangles in Figure 8.1 .
Figure 8.1 Using the Definition of a Triangle to Categorize Shapes
Classical categorization does not tell the full story of how categorization works, however. We use a variety of cognitive processes in determining which objects fit
which category. One of the major problems we confront in this process is graded membership —the observation that some concepts appear to make better category members than others. For example, see if the definition in Table 8.1
fits your definition of bird and then categorize the items in the table.
Table 8.1 Categorizing Objects According to the Definition of Bird
Definition: “Any of the class Aves of warm-blooded, egg-laying, feathered vertebrates
with forelimbs modified to form wings.” (American Heritage Dictionary, 2016)
Now categorize a set of items by answering yes or no regarding the truth of the
following sentences.
1. A sparrow is a bird.
2. An apple is a bird.
3. A penguin is a bird.
Ideally, you said yes to the sparrow and penguin, and no to the apple. But did you notice any difference in how you responded to the sparrow and penguin? Psychologists have researched classical categorization using a behavioural
measure known as the sentence-verification technique, in which volunteers wait for a sentence to appear in front of them on a computer screen and respond as quickly as they can with a yes or no answer to statements such as “A sparrow is a bird,” or, “A penguin is a bird.” The choice the participant makes, as well as her reaction time to respond, is measured by the researcher. Sentence-verification shows us that some members of a category are recognized faster than others
(Olson et al., 2004; Rosch & Mervis, 1975). In other words, subjects almost always answer “yes” faster to sparrow than to penguin. This seems to go against a classical, rule-based categorization system because both sparrows and penguins are equally good fits for the definition, but sparrows are somehow perceived as being more bird-like than penguins. Thus, a modern approach to categorization must explain how “best examples” influence how we categorize items.
Prototypes: Categorization by Comparison
When you hear the word bird, what mental image comes to mind? Does it resemble an ostrich? Or is your image closer to a robin, sparrow, or blue jay? The likely image that comes to mind when you imagine a bird is what
psychologists call a prototype (see Figure 8.2 ). Prototypes are mental representations of an average category member (Rosch, 1973). If you took an average of the three most familiar birds, you would get a prototypical bird.
Figure 8.2 A Prototypical Bird Left: chatursunil/Shutterstock; centre: Al Mueller/Shutterstock; right: Leo/Shutterstock
Prototypes allow for classification by resemblance. When you encounter a little creature you have never seen before, its basic shape—maybe just its silhouette —can be compared to your prototype of a bird. A match will then be made and you can classify the creature as a bird. Notice how different this process is from classical categorization: No rules or definitions are involved, just a set of similarities in overall shape and function.
The main advantage of prototypes is that they help explain why some category members make better examples than others. Ostriches are birds just as much as blue jays are, but they do not resemble the rest of the family very well. In other words, blue jays are closer to the prototypical bird.
Now that you have read about categories based on a set of rules or characteristics (classical categories) and as a general comparison based on resemblances (prototypes), you might wonder which approach is correct.
Research says that we can follow either approach—the choice really depends on how complicated a category or a specific example might be. If there are a few major distinctions between items, we use resemblance; if there are
complications, we switch to rules (Feldman, 2003; Rouder & Ratcliff, 2004, 2006). For example, in the case of seeing a bat dart by, your first impression might be “bird” because it resembles a bird. But if you investigated further, you will see that a bat fits the classical description of a mammal, not a bird. In other words, it has hair, gives live birth rather than laying eggs, and so on.
Networks and Hierarchies
Classical categorization and prototypes only explain part of how we organize information. Each concept that we learn about has similarities to other concepts. A sparrow has physical similarities to a bat (e.g., size and shape); a sparrow will have even more in common with a robin because they are both birds (e.g., size, shape, laying eggs, etc.). These connections among ideas can be represented in
a network diagram known as a semantic network , an interconnected set of nodes (or concepts) and the links that join them to form a category (see Figure 8.3 ). Nodes are circles that represent concepts, and links connect them together to represent the structure of a category as well as the relationships
among different categories (Collins & Loftus, 1975). In these networks, similar items have more, and stronger, connections than unrelated items.
Figure 8.3 A Semantic Network Diagram for the Category “Animal” The nodes include the basic-level categories, Bird and Fish. Another node represents the broader category of Animal, while the lowest three nodes represent the more specific categories of Robin, Emu, and Trout. Source: Based on Collins, A. M., & Quillian, M. R. (1969). Retrieval time from semantic memory. Journal of Verbal Learning
and Verbal Behavior, 8, 240–248.
Something you may notice about Figure 8.3 is that it is arranged in a hierarchy—that is, it consists of a structure moving from general to very specific. This organization is important because different levels of the category are useful in different situations. The most frequently used level, in both thought and
language, is the basic-level category, which is located in the middle row of the diagram (where birds and fish are) (Johnson & Mervis, 1997; Rosch et al., 1976). A number of qualities make the basic-level category unique:
Basic-level categories are the terms used most often in conversation. They are the easiest to pronounce. They are the level at which prototypes exist. They are the level at which most thinking occurs.
To get a sense for how different category levels influence our thinking, we can compare sentences referring to an object at different levels. Consider what would happen if someone approached you and made any one of the following statements:
There’s an animal in your yard. There’s a bird in your yard. There’s a robin in your yard.
The second sentence—”There’s a bird in your yard”—is probably the one you are most likely to hear, and it makes reference to a basic level of a category
(birds). Many people would respond that the choice of animal as a label indicates confusion, claiming that if the speaker knew it was a bird, he should have said so; otherwise, it sounds like he is trying to figure out which kind of animal he is
looking at. Indeed, superordinate categories like “animal” are generally used when someone is uncertain about an object or when he or she wishes to group together a number of different examples from the basic-level category (e.g.,
birds, cats, dogs). In contrast, when the speaker identifies a subordinate-level category like robin, it suggests that there is something special about this particular type of bird. It may also indicate that the speaker has expert-level knowledge of the basic category and that using the more specific level is necessary to get her point across in the intended way.
In order to demonstrate the usefulness of semantic networks in our attempt to explain how we organize knowledge, complete this easy test based on the
animal network in Figure 8.3 . If you were asked to react to dozens of sentences, and the following two sentences were included among them, which do you think you would mark as “true” the fastest?
A robin is a bird. A robin is an animal.
As you can see in the network diagram, robin and bird are closer together; in fact, to connect robin to animal, you must first go through bird. Sure enough,
people regard the sentence “A robin is a bird” as a true statement faster than “A robin is an animal.”
Now consider another set of examples. Which trait do you think you would verify faster?
A robin has wings. A robin eats.
Using the connecting lines as we did before, we can predict that it would be the first statement about wings. As research shows, our guess would be correct. These results demonstrate that how concepts are arranged in semantic networks can influence how quickly we can access information about them.
Working the Scientific Literacy Model Priming and Semantic Networks
The thousands of concepts and categories in long-term memory are not isolated, but connected in a number of ways. What are the consequences of forming all the connections in semantic networks?
What do we know about semantic networks? In your daily life, you notice the connections within semantic networks anytime you encounter one aspect of a category and other related concepts seem to come to mind. Hearing the word “fruit,” for example, might lead you to think of an apple, and the apple may lead you to think of a computer, which may lead you to think of a paper that is due tomorrow. These associations
illustrate the concept of priming —the activation of individual concepts in long-term memory. Interestingly, research has shown that priming can also occur without your awareness; “fruit” may not have brought the image of a watermelon to mind, but the
concept of a watermelon may have been primed nonetheless.
How can science explain priming effects? Psychologists can test for priming through reaction time measurements, such as those in the sentence verification tasks
discussed earlier or through a method called the lexical decision task. With the lexical decision method, a volunteer sits at a computer and stares at a focal point. Next, a string of letters flashes on the screen. The volunteer responds yes or no as quickly as possible to indicate whether the letters spell a word
(see Figure 8.4 ). Using this method, a volunteer should respond faster that “apple” is a word if it follows the word “fruit”
(which is semantically related) than if it follows the word “bus” (which is not semantically related).
Figure 8.4 A Lexical Decision Task
In a lexical decision task, an individual watches a computer screen as strings of letters are presented. The participant must respond as quickly as possible to indicate whether the letters spell a word (e.g., “desk”) or are a non-word (e.g., “sekd”).
Given that lexical decision tasks are highly controlled experiments, we might wonder if they have any impact outside of the laboratory. One test by Jennifer Coane suggests that priming
does occur in everyday life (Coane & Balota, 2009). Coane’s research team invited volunteers to participate in lexical decision
tasks about holidays at different times of the year. The words they chose were based on the holiday season at that time. Sure enough, without any laboratory priming, words such as “nutcracker” and “reindeer” showed priming effects at times when
they were congruent (or “in season”) in December, relative to other times of the year (see Figure 8.5 ). Similarly, words like “leprechaun” and “shamrock” showed a priming effect during the month of March. Because the researchers did not instigate the priming, it must have been the holiday spirit at work: Decorations and advertisements may serve as constant primes.
Figure 8.5 Priming Affects the Speed of Responses on a Lexical Decision Task
Average response times were faster when the holiday-themed
words were congruent (in season), as represented by the blue bars. This finding is consistent for both the first half and the second half of the list of words.
Source: Republished with permission of Springer, from Priming the Holiday Spirit: Persistent
Activation due to Extraexperimental Experiences Fig. 1, Pg.1126, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 16
(6), 1124–1128, 2009. Permission conveyed through Copyright Clearance Center, Inc.
Can we critically evaluate this information? Priming influences thought and behaviour, but is certainly not all- powerful. In fact, it can be very weak at times. Because the strength of priming can vary a great deal, some published experiments have been very difficult to replicate—an important criterion of quality research. So, while most psychologists agree that priming is an important area of research, there have been very open debates at academic conferences and in peer- reviewed journals about the best way to conduct the research
and how to interpret the results (Cesario, 2014; Klatzky & Creswell, 2014).
Why is this relevant? Advertisers know all too well that priming is more than just a curiosity; it can be used in a controlled way to promote specific behaviours. For example, cigarette advertising is not allowed on television stations, but large tobacco companies can sponsor anti-smoking ads. Why would a company advertise against its own product? Researchers brought a group of smokers into the lab to complete a study on television programming and subtly included a specific type of advertisement between segments (they did not reveal the true purpose of the study until after it was completed). Their participants were four times as likely to light up after watching a tobacco-company anti-smoking ad than if they saw the control group ad about supporting a youth sports league
(Harris et al., 2013). It would appear that while the verbal message is “don’t smoke,” the images actually prime the behaviour. Fortunately, more healthful behaviours have been promoted through priming; for example, carefully designed
primes have been shown to reduce mindless snacking (Papies &
Hamstra, 2010) and binge-drinking in university students (Goode et al., 2014).
Module 8.1a Quiz:
Concepts and Categories
Know . . . 1. A is a mental representation of an average member of a
category.
A. subordinate-level category B. prototype C. similarity principle D. network
2. refer to mental representations of objects, events, or ideas. A. Categories B. Concepts C. Primings D. Networks
Understand . . . 3. Classical categorization approaches do not account for , a type
of categorization that notes some items make better category members than others.
A. basic-level categorization B. prototyping C. priming D. graded membership
Memory, Culture, and Categories
In the first part of this module, we examined how we group together concepts to form categories. However, it is important to remember that these processes are based, at least in part, on our experiences. In this section of the module, we examine the role of experience—both in terms of memory processes and cultural influences—on our ability to organize our vast stores of information.
Categorization and Experience
People integrate new stimuli into categories based on what they have
experienced before (Jacoby & Brooks, 1984). When we encounter a new item, we select its category by retrieving the item(s) that are most similar to it from
memory (Brooks, 1978). Normally, these procedures lead to fast and accurate categorization. If you see an animal with wings and a beak, you can easily retrieve from memory a bird that you previously saw; doing so will lead you to infer that this new object is a bird, even if it is a type of bird that you might not have encountered before.
However, there are also times when our reliance on previously experienced items can lead us astray. In a series of studies with medical students and practising physicians, Geoffrey Norman and colleagues at McMaster University found that recent exposure to an example from one category can bias how
people diagnose new cases (Leblanc et al., 2001; Norman, Brooks, et al., 1989; Norman, Rosenthal, et a., 1989). In one experiment, medical students were taught to diagnose different skin conditions using written rules as well as photographs of these diseases. Some of the photographs were typical examples of that disorder whereas other photographs were unusual cases that resembled other disorders. When tested later, the participants were more likely to rely on the previously viewed photographs than they were on the rules (a fact that would surprise most medical schools); in fact, the unusual photographs viewed during training even led to wrong diagnoses for test items that were textbook examples
of that disorder (Allen et al., 1992)! This shows the power that our memory can have on how we take in and organize new information. As an aside, expert physicians were accurate over 90% of the time in most studies, so you can still trust your doctor.
Categories, Memory, and the Brain
The fact that our ability to make categorical decisions is influenced by previous experiences tells us that this process involves memory. Studies of neurological patients like the man discussed at the beginning of this module provide a unique perspective on how these memories are organized in the brain. Some patients with damage to the temporal lobes have trouble identifying objects such as pictures of animals or vegetables despite the fact that they were able to describe the different shapes that made up those objects (i.e., they could still see). The
fact that these deficits were for particular categories of objects was intriguing, as it suggested that damaging certain parts of the brain could impair the ability to recognize some categories while leaving others unaffected (Warrington &
McCarthy, 1983; Warrington & Shallice, 1979). Because these problems were isolated to certain categories, these patients were diagnosed as having a
disorder known as category specific visual agnosia (or CSVA).
Early attempts to find a pattern in these patients’ deficits focused on the
distinction between living and non-living categories (see Figure 8.6 ). Several patients with CSVA had difficulties identifying fruits, vegetables, and/or animals but were still able to accurately identify members of categories such as tools and
furniture (Arguin et al., 1996; Bunn et al., 1998). However, although CSVA has been observed in a number of patients, researchers also noted that it would be
physically impossible for our brains to have specialized regions for every category we have encountered. There simply isn’t enough space for this to occur. Instead, they proposed that evolutionary pressures led to the development
of specialized circuits in the brain for a small group of categories that were important for our survival. These categories included animals, fruits and
vegetables, members of our own species, and possibly tools (Caramazza & Mahon, 2003). Few, if any, other categories involve such specialized memory storage. This theory can explain most, but not all, of the problems observed in the patients tested thus far. It is also in agreement with brain-imaging studies showing that different parts of the temporal lobes are active when people view
items from different categories including animals, tools, and people (Martin et
al., 1996). Thus, although different people will vary in terms of the exact location that these categories are stored, it does appear that some categories are stored separately from others.
Figure 8.6 Naming Errors for a CSVA Patient Patients with CSVA have problems identifying members of specific categories. When asked to identify the object depicted by different line drawings, patient E. W. showed a marked impairment for the recognition of animals. Her ability to name items from other categories demonstrated that her overall perceptual abilities were preserved. Source: Based on data from Caramazza, A., & Mahon, B. Z. (2003). The organization of conceptual knowledge: the evidence
from category-specific semantic deficits. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 7 (8), 354–361.
Biopsychosocial Perspectives Culture and
Categorical Thinking Animals, relatives, household appliances, colours, and other entities all fall into categories. However, people from different cultures might differ in how they categorize such objects. In North America, cows are sometimes referred to as “livestock” or “food animals,” whereas in India, where cows are regarded as sacred, neither category would apply.
In addition, how objects are related to each other differs considerably across cultures. Which of the two photos in Figure 8.7 a do you think someone from North America took? Researchers asked both American and Japanese university students to take a picture of someone, from whatever angle or degree of focus they chose. American students were more likely to take close-up pictures, whereas Japanese students
typically included surrounding objects (Nisbett & Masuda, 2003). When asked which two objects go together in Figure 8.7 b, American college students tend to group cows with chickens—because both are animals. In contrast, Japanese students coupled cows with grass, because grass
is what cows eat (Gutchess et al., 2010; Nisbett & Masuda, 2003). These examples demonstrate cross-cultural differences in perceiving how objects are related to their environments. People raised in North America tend to focus on a single characteristic, whereas Japanese people tend to view objects in relation to their environment.
Figure 8.7 Your Culture and Your Point of View (a) Which of these two pictures do you think a North American would be more likely to take? (b) Which two go together? Top photos: Blend Images/Shutterstock
Source, bottom: Adapted from Nisbett, R. E., & Masuda, T. (2003). Culture and point of view. Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences, 100 (19), 11163–11170. Copyright © 2003. Reprinted by permission of National
Academy of Sciences.
Researchers have even found differences in brain function when people
of different cultural backgrounds view and categorize objects (Park & Huang, 2010). Figure 8.8 reveals differences in brain activity when
Westerners and East Asians view photos of objects, such as an animal, against a background of grass and trees. Areas of the brain devoted to processing both objects (lateral parts of the occipital lobes) and background (the parahippocampal gyrus, an area underneath the hippocampus) become activated when Westerners view these photos, whereas only areas devoted to background processes become activated
in East Asians (Goh et al., 2007). These findings demonstrate that a complete understanding of how humans categorize objects requires application of the biopsychosocial model.
Figure 8.8 Brain Activity Varies by Culture Brain regions that are involved in object recognition and processing are activated differently in people from Western and Eastern cultures. Brain regions that are involved in processing individual objects are more highly activated when Westerners view focal objects against background scenery, whereas people from East Asian countries appear to attend to background scenery more closely than focal objects. Source: Park, D. C. & Huang, C.-M. (2010). Culture wires the brain: A cognitive neuroscience perspective.
Perspectives on Psychological Science, 5 (4), 391–400. Reprinted by permission of SAGE Publications.
Myths in Mind How Many Words for Snow?
Cultural differences in how people think and categorize items have led to
the idea of linguistic relativity (or the Whorfian hypothesis)—the theory that the language we use determines how we understand (and categorize) the world. One often-cited example is about the Inuit in Canada’s Arctic regions, who are thought to have many words for snow,
each with a different meaning. For example, aput means snow that is on the ground, and gana means falling snow. This observation, which was made in the early 19th century by anthropologist Franz Boas, was often repeated and exaggerated, with claims that Inuit people had dozens of words for different types of snow. With so many words for snow, it was thought that perhaps the Inuit people perceive snow differently than someone who does not live near it almost year-round. Scholars used the example to argue that language determines how people categorize the world.
Research tells us that we must be careful in over-generalizing the influence of language on categorization. The reality is that the Inuit seem to categorize snow the same way a person from the rest of Canada does. Someone from balmy Winnipeg can tell the difference between falling snow, blowing snow, sticky snow, drifting snow, and “oh-sweet-God-it’s- snowing-in-May-snow,” just as well as an Inuit who lives with snow for
most of the year (Martin, 1986). Therefore, we see that the linguistic relativity hypothesis is incorrect in this case: The difference in vocabulary for snow does not lead to differences in perception.
Categories and Culture
The human brain is wired to perceive similarities and differences and, as we learned from prototypes, the end result of this tendency is to categorize items based on these comparisons as well as on our previous experiences with members of different categories. However, our natural inclination to do so interacts with our cultural experiences; how we categorize objects depends to a great extent on what we have learned about those objects from others in our culture.
Various researchers have explored the relationships between culture and categorization by studying basic-level categories among people from different cultural backgrounds. For example, researchers have asked individuals from traditional villages in Central America to identify a variety of plants and animals that are extremely relevant to their diet, medicine, safety, and other aspects of their lives. Not surprisingly, these individuals referred to plants and animals at a
more specific level than North American university students would (Bailenson et al., 2002; Berlin, 1974). Thus, categorization is based—at least to some extent —on cultural learning. Psychologists have also discovered that cultural factors influence not just how we categorize individual objects, but also how objects in our world relate to one another.
Although culture and memory both clearly affect how we describe and categorize our world, we do need to remember to critically analyze the results of these studies. Specifically, as our world becomes more Westernized, it is possible— even likely—that these cultural differences will decrease. These results, then, tell
us about cultural differences at a given time. As you saw in the Myths in Mind feature above, we should also exercise caution when reading about another form of cultural influences on categorization—linguistic relativity.
Module 8.1b Quiz:
Memory, Culture, and Categories
Know . . . 1. The idea that our language influences how we understand the world is
referred to as . A. the context specificity hypothesis B. sentence verification C. the Whorfian hypothesis D. priming
Understand . . . 2. A neurologist noticed that a patient with temporal-lobe damage seemed
to have problems naming specific categories of objects. Based upon
what you read in this module, which classes of objects are most likely to be affected by this damage?
A. Animals and tools B. Household objects that he would use quite frequently C. Fruits and vegetables D. Related items such as animals and hunting weapons
Apply . . . 3. Janice, a medical school student, looked at her grandmother’s hospital
chart. Although her grandmother appeared to have problems with her intestines, Janice thought the pattern of the lab results resembled those of a patient with lupus she had seen in the clinic earlier that week. Janice is showing an example of
A. how memory for a previous example can influence categorization decisions.
B. how people rely on prototypes to categorize objects and events. C. how we rely on a set of rules to categorize objects. D. how we are able to quickly categorize examples from specific
categories.
Analyze . . . 4. Research on linguistic relativity suggests that
A. language has a complete control over how people categorize the world.
B. language can have some effects on categorization, but the effects are limited.
C. language has no effect on categorization. D. researchers have not addressed this question.
Module 8.1 Summary
categories
Know . . . the key terminology associated with concepts and categories.
8.1a
classical categorization
concept
graded membership
linguistic relativity (Whorfian hypothesis)
priming
prototypes
semantic network
Certain objects and events are more likely to be associated in clusters. The priming effect demonstrates this phenomenon; for example, hearing the word “fruit” makes it more likely that you will think of “apple” than, say, “table.” More specifically, we organize our knowledge about the world through semantic networks, which arrange categories from general to specific levels. Usually we think in terms of basic-level categories, but under some circumstances we can be either more or less specific. Studies of people with brain damage suggest that the neural representations of members of evolutionarily important categories are stored together in the brain. These studies also show us that our previous experience with a category can influence how we categorize and store new stimuli in the brain.
One of many possible examples of this influence was discussed. Specifically, ideas of how objects relate to one another differ between people from North America and people from Eastern Asia. People from North America (and Westerners in general) tend to focus on individual, focal objects in a scene, whereas people from Japan tend to focus on how objects are interrelated.
Understand . . . theories of how people organize their knowledge about the world.
8.1b
Understand . . . how experience and culture can shape the way we organize our knowledge.
8.1c
Apply Activity Try the following questions for practice.
1. What is the best example for the category of fish: a hammerhead shark, a trout, or an eel?
2. What do you consider to be a prototypical sport? Why? 3. Some categories are created spontaneously, yet still have prototypes.
For example, what might be a prototypical object for the category “what to save if your house is on fire”?
Researchers have shown that language can influence the way we think, but it cannot entirely shape how we perceive the world. For example, people can perceive visual and tactile differences between different types of snow even if they don’t have unique words for each type.
Apply . . . your knowledge to identify prototypical examples.8.1d
Analyze . . . the claim that the language we speak determines how we think.
8.1e
Module 8.2 Problem Solving, Judgment, and Decision Making
Polaris/Newscom
Learning Objectives
Ki-Suck Han was about to die. He had just been shoved onto the subway’s tracks and was desperately scrambling to climb back onto the station’s platform as the subway train rushed toward him. If you were a few metres away from Mr. Han, what would you have done? What factors would have influenced your actions?
In this case, the person on the platform was R. Umar Abbasi, a freelance photographer working for The New York Post. Mr. Abbasi did not put down his camera and run to help Mr. Han. Instead, he took a well-framed photograph that captured the terrifying scene. The photograph was published on the front page of the Post and was immediately condemned by people who were upset that the photographer didn’t try to save Mr. Han’s life (and that the Post used the photograph to make money). In a statement released to other media outlets, the Post claimed that Mr. Abbasi felt that he wasn’t strong enough to lift the man and instead tried to use his camera’s flash to signal the driver. According to this explanation, Mr. Abbasi analyzed the situation and selected a course of action that he felt would be most helpful. Regardless of whether you believe this account, it does illustrate an important point: Reasoning and decision making can be performed in a number of ways and can be influenced by a number of factors. That is why we don’t all respond the same way to the same situation.
Know . . . the key terminology of problem solving and decision making. Understand . . . the characteristics that problems have in common. Understand . . . how obstacles to problem solving are often self-imposed. Apply . . . your knowledge to determine if you tend to be a maximizer or a satisficer. Analyze . . . whether human thought is primarily logical or intuitive.
8.2a 8.2b 8.2c 8.2d
8.2e
Focus Questions
1. How do people make decisions and solve problems? 2. How can having multiple options lead people to be dissatisfied
with their decisions?
In other modules of this text, you have read about how we learn and remember
new information (Modules 7.1 and 7.2 ) and how we organize our knowledge of different concepts (Module 8.1 ). This module will focus on how we use this information to help us solve problems and make decisions. Although it may seem like such “higher-order cognitive abilities” are distinct from memory and categorization, they are actually a wonderful example of how the different topics within the field of psychology relate to each other. When we try to solve a problem or decide between alternatives, we are actually drawing on our knowledge of different concepts and using that information to try to imagine
different possible outcomes (Green et al., 2006). How well we perform these tasks depends on a number of factors including our problem-solving strategies and the type of information available to us.
Defining and Solving Problems
You are certainly familiar with the general concept of a problem, but in
psychological terminology, problem solving means accomplishing a goal when the solution or the path to the solution is not clear (Leighton & Sternberg, 2003; Robertson, 2001). Indeed, many of the problems that we face in life contain obstacles that interfere with our ability to reach our goals. The challenge, then, is to find a technique or strategy that will allow us to overcome these obstacles. As you will see, there are a number of options that people use for this purpose—although none of them are perfect.
Problem-Solving Strategies and Techniques
Each of us will face an incredible number of problems in our lives. Some of these problems will be straightforward and easy to solve; however, others will be quite complex and will require us to come up with a novel solution. How do we remember the strategies we can use for routine problems? And, how do we develop new strategies for nonroutine problems? Although these questions
appear as if they could have an infinite number of answers, there seem to be two common techniques that we use time and again.
One type of strategy is more objective, logical, and slower, whereas the other is
more subjective, intuitive, and quicker (Gilovich & Griffin, 2002; Holyoak & Morrison, 2005). The difference between them can be illustrated with an example. Suppose you are trying to figure out where you have left your phone. You’ve tried the trick of calling yourself using a landline phone, but you couldn’t
hear it ringing. So, it’s not in your house. A logical approach might involve making of list of the places you’ve been in the last 24 hours and then retracing
your steps until you (hopefully) find your phone. An intuitive approach might involve thinking about previous times you’ve lost your phone or wallet and using these experiences to guide your search (e.g., “I’m always forgetting my phone at Dan’s place, so I should look there first”).
When we think logically, we rely on algorithms , problem-solving strategies based on a series of rules. As such, they are very logical and follow a set of steps, usually in a pre-set order. Computers are very good at using algorithms because they can follow a preprogrammed set of steps and perform thousands of operations every second. People, however, are not always so rule-bound. We tend to rely on intuition to find strategies and solutions that seem like a good fit
for the problem. These are called heuristics , problem-solving strategies that stem from prior experiences and provide an educated guess as to what is the most likely solution. Heuristics are often quite efficient; these “rules of thumb” are usually accurate and allow us to find solutions and to make decisions quickly. In the example of trying to figure out where you left your phone, you are more likely to put your phone down at a friend’s house than on the bus, so that increases the likelihood that your phone is still sitting on his coffee table. Calling your friend to
ask about your phone is much simpler than retracing your steps from class to the gym to the grocery store, and so on.
The overall goal of both algorithms and heuristics is to find an accurate solution as efficiently as possible. In many situations, heuristics allow us to solve problems quite rapidly. However, the trade-off is that these shortcuts can occasionally lead to incorrect solutions, a topic we will return to later in this module.
Of course, different problems call for different approaches. In fact, in some cases, it might be useful to start off with one type of problem-solving and then switch to another. Think about how you might play the children’s word-game
known as hangman, shown in Figure 8.9 . Here, the goal state is to spell a word. In the initial state, you have none of the letters or other clues to guide you. So, your obstacles are to overcome (i.e., fill in) blanks without guessing the wrong letters. How would you go about achieving this goal?
Figure 8.9 Problem Solving in Hangman In a game of hangman, your job is to guess the letters in the word represented by the four blanks to the left. If you get a letter right, your opponent will put it in the correct blank. If you guess an incorrect letter, your opponent will draw a body part on the stick figure. The goal is to guess the word before the entire body is drawn.
On one hand, an algorithm might go like this: Guess the letter A, then B, then C,
and so on through the alphabet until you lose or until the word is spelled. However, this would not be a very successful approach. An alternative algorithm would be to find out how frequently each letter occurs in the alphabet and then guess the letters in that order until the game ends with you winning or losing. So,
you would start out by selecting E, then A, and so on. On the other hand, a heuristic might be useful. For example, if you discover the last letter is G, you might guess that the next-to-last letter is N, because you know that many words end with -ing. Using a heuristic here would save you time and usually lead to an accurate solution.
As you can see, some problems (such as the hangman game) can be approached with either algorithms or heuristics. In other words, most people start out a game like hangman with an algorithm: Guess the most frequent letters until
a recognizable pattern emerges, such as -ing, or the letters -oug (which are often followed by h, as in tough or cough) appear. At that point, you might switch to heuristics and guess which letters would be most likely to fit in the spaces.
Cognitive Obstacles
Using algorithms or heuristics will often allow you to eventually solve a problem; however, there are times when the problem-solving rules and strategies that you have established might actually get in the way of problem solving. The nine-dot
problem (Figure 8.10 ; Maier, 1930) is a good example of such a cognitive obstacle. The goal of this problem is to connect all nine dots using only four straight lines and without lifting your pen or pencil off the paper. Try solving the nine-dot problem before you read further.
Figure 8.10 The Nine-Dot Problem Connect all nine dots using only four straight lines and without lifting your pen or
pencil (Maier, 1930). The solution to the problem can be seen in Figure 8.11 .
Source: Maier, N. F. (1930). Reasoning in humans. I. On direction. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 10 (2), 115–143.
American Psychological Association.
Figure 8.11 One Solution to the Nine-Dot Problem In this case, the tendency is to see the outer edge of dots as a boundary, and to assume that one cannot go past that boundary. However, if you are willing to extend some of the lines beyond the dots, it is actually quite a simple puzzle to complete.
Here is something to think about when solving this problem: Most people impose limitations on where the lines can go, even though those limits are not a part of
the rules. Specifically, people often assume that a line cannot extend beyond the
dots. As you can see in Figure 8.11 , breaking these rules is necessary in order to find a solution to the problem.
Having a routine solution available for a problem generally allows us to solve that problem with less effort than we would use if we encountered it for the first time. This efficiency saves us time and effort. Sometimes, however, routines may impose cognitive barriers that impede solving a problem if circumstances change
so that the routine solution no longer works. A mental set is a cognitive obstacle that occurs when an individual attempts to apply a routine solution to what is actually a new type of problem. Figure 8.12 presents a problem that often elicits a mental set. The answer appears at the bottom of the figure, but make your guess before you check it. Did you get it right? If not, then you probably succumbed to a mental set.
Figure 8.12 The Five-Daughter Problem Maria’s father has five daughters: Lala, Lela, Lila, and Lola. What is the fifth daughter’s name?
The fifth daughter’s name is Maria.
Mental sets can occur in many different situations. For instance, a person may
experience functional fixedness , which occurs when an individual identifies an object or technique that could potentially solve a problem, but can think of only its most obvious function. Functional fixedness can be illustrated with a classic thought problem: Figure 8.13 shows two strings hanging from a ceiling. Imagine you are asked to tie the strings together. However, once you grab a string, you cannot let go of it until both are tied together. The problem is, unless you have extraordinarily long arms, you cannot reach the second string
while you are holding on to the first one (Maier, 1931). So how would you solve the problem? Figure 8.16 offers one possible answer and an explanation of what makes this problem challenging.
Figure 8.13 The Two-String Problem Imagine you are standing between two strings and need to tie them together.
The only problem is that you cannot reach both strings at the same time (Maier, 1931). In the room with you is a table, a piece of paper, a pair of pliers, and a ball of cotton. What do you do? For a solution, see Figure 8.16 .
Figure 8.16 A Solution to the Two-String Problem One solution to the two-string problem from Figure 8.13 is to take the pliers off the table and tie them to one string. This provides enough weight to swing one string back and forth while you grab the other. Many people demonstrate functional fixedness when they approach this problem—they do not think of using the pliers as a weight because its normal function is as a grasping tool.
Problem solving occurs in every aspect of life, but as you can see, there are basic cognitive processes that appear no matter what the context. We identify the goal we want to achieve, try to determine the best strategy to do so, and hope that we do not get caught by unexpected obstacles—especially those we create in our own minds.
Of course, not all problems are negative obstacles that must be overcome. Problem solving can also be part of some positive events as well.
PSYCH@ Problem Solving and Humour
Jokes often involve a problem that needs to be solved. Solving the problem typically requires at least two steps. The initial step requires the audience to detect that some part of the joke’s set-up is not what is
Question: Why can’t university students take exams at the zoo?
Answer: There are too many cheetahs.
expected. Theories of humour sometimes refer to this as incongruity detection. Incongruities create an initial tension. In the example we’re using, the key word in this joke is “cheetahs.” Why would the presence of cheetahs affect exam taking? The trick is to understand that “cheetahs” sounds a lot like “cheaters.” So, a zoo would have “cheetahs,” but an exam could have “cheaters.” Once we understand the incongruity, we no
longer feel any tension. Incongruity resolution has occurred (Suls, 1972).
At this point, the audience has solved the problem. But, is it funny? Wyer and Collins (1992) suggested that for an incongruity resolution to be funny, the audience or reader would need to elaborate on the joke, possibly thinking about how it relates to them or forming humourous
mental images (see Figure 8.14 ). This process of elaboration should, ideally, lead to an emotional response of amusement, although this might differ across cultures.
Figure 8.14 The Comprehension-Elaboration Theory of Humour Humour is a form of problem solving. With most jokes, we identify the incongruity or “twist” involved in the wording of the joke and then attempt to resolve it. Once we have found the solution, we think about (elaborate on) the joke, oftentimes relating it to ourselves or to mental imagery. These processes lead to a feeling of amusement or, in the case of the cheetah joke, a rolling of the eyes. Source: Republished with permission of Elsevier, Inc. from Towards a neural circuit model of verbal humor
processing: An fMRI study of the neural substrates of incongruity detection and resolution, NeuroImage 66 (2013)
169–176. Copyright © 2012. Permission conveyed through Copyright Clearance Center, Inc.
Recent neuroimaging studies have manipulated the characteristics of
verbal stimuli to allow the researchers to identify brain areas related to nonsense stimuli (incongruities that did not undergo cognitive
elaboration) and stimuli that were perceived as humourous (incongruities that did undergo elaboration). Incongruity detection and resolution activated areas in the temporal lobes and the medial frontal lobes (close to the middle of the brain). Elaboration activated a network involving the
left frontal and parietal lobes (Chan et al., 2013). The purpose of this section wasn’t to take the joy out of humour. Instead, it was to show that humour, like most of our behaviours, involves the biopsychosocial model. If we suggested otherwise, we’d be lion.
Module 8.2a Quiz:
Defining and Solving Problems
Know . . . 1. are problem-solving strategies that provide a reasonable
guess for the solution.
A. Algorithms B. Heuristics C. Operators D. Subgoals
Understand . . . 2. Javier was attempting to teach his daughter how to tie her shoes. The
strategy that would prove most effective in this situation would be a(n)
. A. heuristic B. algorithm C. obstacle D. mental set
3. Jennifer was trying to put together her new bookshelf in her bedroom. Unfortunately, she didn’t have a hammer. Frustrated, she went outside
and sat down beside some bricks that were left over from a gardening project. Her inability to see that the bricks could be used to hammer in
nails is an example of . A. a mental set B. an algorithm C. functional fixedness D. a heuristic
Judgment and Decision Making
Like problem solving, judgments and decisions can be based on logical algorithms, intuitive heuristics, or a combination of the two types of thought
(Gilovich & Griffin, 2002; Holyoak & Morrison, 2005). We tend to use heuristics more often than we realize, even those of us who consider ourselves to be logical thinkers. This isn’t necessary a bad thing—heuristics allow us to make efficient judgments and decisions all the time. In this section of the module, we will examine specific types of heuristics, how they positively influence our
decision making, and how they can sometimes lead us to incorrect conclusions.
Conjunction Fallacies and Representativeness
Linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken, and very bright. She majored in philosophy. As
a student, she was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice,
and also participated in antinuclear demonstrations. Which is more likely?
A. Linda is a bank teller. B. Linda is a bank teller and is active in the feminist movement.
Which answer did you choose? In a study that presented this problem to participants, the researchers reported that (B) was chosen more than 80% of the time. Most respondents stated that option (B) seemed more correct even though option (A) is actually much more likely and would be the correct choice based on
the question asked (Tversky & Kahneman, 1982).
So how is the correct answer (A)? Individuals who approach this problem from the stance of probability theory would apply some simple logical steps. The world has a certain number of (A) bank tellers; this number would be considered the
base rate, or the rate at which you would find a bank teller in the world’s population just by asking random people on the street if they are a bank teller. Among the base group, there will be a certain number of (B) bank tellers who are
feminists, as shown in Figure 8.15 . In other words, the number of bank tellers who are feminists will always be a fraction of (i.e., less than) the total number of bank tellers. But, because many of Linda’s qualities could relate to a “feminist,”
the idea that Linda is a bank teller and a feminist feels correct. This type of error, known as the conjunction fallacy , reflects the mistaken belief that finding a specific member in two overlapping categories (i.e., a member of the conjunction of two categories) is more likely than finding any member of one of the larger, general categories.
Figure 8.15 The Conjunction Fallacy There are more bank tellers in the world than there are bank tellers who are feminists, so there is a greater chance that Linda comes from either (A) or (B) than just (B) alone.
The conjunction fallacy demonstrates the use of the representativeness
heuristic : making judgments of likelihood based on how well an example represents a specific category. In the bank teller example, we cannot identify any traits that seem like a typical bank teller. At the same time, the traits of social activism really do seem to represent a feminist. Thus, the judgment was biased by the fact that Linda seemed representative of a feminist, even though a feminist bank teller will always be rarer than bank tellers in general (i.e., the representativeness heuristic influenced the decision more than logic or mathematical probabilities).
Seeing this type of problem has led many people to question what is wrong with people’s ability to use logic: Why is it so easy to get 80% of the people in a study
to give the wrong answer? In fact, there is nothing inherently wrong with using heuristics; they simply allow individuals to obtain quick answers based on readily available information. In fact, heuristics often lead to correct assumptions about a situation.
Consider this scenario:
You are in a department store trying to find a product that is apparently sold out. At the
end of the aisle, you see a young man in tan pants with a red polo shirt—the typical
employee’s uniform of this chain of stores. Should you stop and consider the
probabilities yielding an answer that was technically most correct?
A. A young male of this age would wear tan pants and a red polo shirt. B. A young male of this age would wear tan pants and a red polo shirt and work at
this store.
Or does it make sense to just assume (B) is correct, and to simply ask the young
man for help (Shepperd & Koch, 2005)? In this case, it would make perfect sense to assume (B) is correct and not spend time wondering about the best logical way to approach the situation. In other words, heuristics often work and, in the process, save us time and effort. However, there are many situations in which these mental shortcuts can lead to biased or incorrect conclusions.
The Availability Heuristic
The availability heuristic entails estimating the frequency of an event based on how easily examples of it come to mind. In other words, we assume that if examples are readily available, then they must be very frequent. For example, researchers asked volunteers which was more frequent in the English language:
A. Words that begin with the letter K B. Words that have K as the third letter
Most subjects chose (A) even though it is not the correct choice. The same thing
happened with the consonants L, N, R, and V, all of which appear as the third letter in a word more often than they appear as the first letter (Tversky & Kahneman, 1973). This outcome reflects the application of the availability heuristic: People base judgments on the information most readily available.
Of course, heuristics often do produce correct answers. Subjects in the same study were asked which was more common in English:
A. Words that begin with the letter K B. Words that begin with the letter T
In this case, more subjects found that words beginning with T were readily available to memory, and they were correct. The heuristic helped provide a quick, intuitive answer.
There are numerous real-world examples of the availability heuristic. In the year following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, people were much more likely to overestimate the likelihood that planes could crash and/or be hijacked. As a result, fewer people flew that year than in the year prior to the attacks, opting instead to travel by car when possible. The availability of the image of planes crashing into the World Trade Center was so vivid and easily retrieved from memory that it influenced decision making. Ironically, this shift proved to be
dangerous, particularly given that driving is statistically much more dangerous than flying. Gerd Gigerenzer, a German psychologist at the Max Planck Institute
in Berlin, examined traffic fatalities on U.S. roads in the years before and after 2001. He found that in the calendar year following these terrorist attacks, there were more than 1500 additional deaths on American roads (when compared to the average of the previous years). Within a year of the attacks, the number of people using planes returned to approximately pre-9/11 levels; so did the
number of road fatalities (Gigerenzer, 2004). In other words, for almost a year, people overestimated the risks of flying because it was easier to think of examples of 9/11 than to think of all of the times hijackings and plane crashes
did not occur; and, they underestimated the risks associated with driving because these images were less available to many people. This example shows us that heuristics, although often useful, can cause us to incorrectly judge the
risks associated with many elements of our lives (Gardner, 2008).
Anchoring and Framing Effects
While the representativeness and availability heuristics involve our ability to remember examples that are similar to the current situation, other heuristics influence our responses based on the way that information is presented. Issues such as the wording of a problem and the problem’s frames of reference can
have a profound impact on judgments. One such effect, known as the anchoring effect , occurs when an individual attempts to solve a problem involving numbers and uses previous knowledge to keep (i.e., anchor) the response within a limited range. Sometimes this previous knowledge consists of facts that we can retrieve from memory. For example, imagine that you are asked to name the year that British Columbia became part of Canada. Although most of you would, of course, excitedly jump from your chair and shout, “1871!” the rest might assume that if Canada became a country in 1867, then B.C. likely joined a few years after that. In this latter case, the birth of our country in 1867 served as an anchor for the judgment about when B.C. joined Confederation.
The anchoring heuristic has also been produced experimentally. In these cases, questions worded in different ways can produce vastly different responses
(Epley & Gilovich, 2006; Kahneman & Miller, 1986). For example, consider what might happen if researchers asked the same question to two different groups, using a different anchor each time:
A. What percentage of countries in the United Nations are from Africa? Is it greater than or less than 10%? What do you think the exact percentage is?
B. What percentage of countries in the United Nations are from Africa? Is it greater than or less than 65%? What do you think the exact percentage is?
Researchers conducted a study using similar methods and found that individuals in group (A), who received the 10% anchor, estimated the number to be approximately 25%. Individuals in group (B), who received the 65% anchor, estimated the percentage at approximately 45%. In this case, the anchor obviously had a significant effect on the estimates.
The anchoring heuristic can have a large effect on your life. For example, have you ever had to bargain with someone while travelling? Or have you ever negotiated the price of a car? If you are able to establish a low anchor during bargaining, the final price is likely to be much lower than if you let the salesperson dictate the terms. So don’t be passive—use what you learn in this course to save yourself some money.
Decision making can also be influenced by how a problem is worded or framed. Consider the following dilemma: Imagine that you are a selfless doctor volunteering in a village in a disease-plagued part of Africa. You have two treatment options. Vaccine A has been used before; you know that it will save 200 of the 600 villagers. Vaccine B is untested; it has a 33% chance of saving all 600 people and a 67% chance of saving no one. Which option would you choose?
Now let’s suppose that you are given two different treatment options for the villagers. Treatment C has been used before and will definitely kill 67% of the villagers. Treatment D is untested; it has a 33% chance of killing none of the villagers and a 67% chance of killing them all. Which option would you choose?
Most people choose the vaccine that will definitely save 200 people (Vaccine A)
and the treatment that has a chance of killing no one (Treatment D). This tendency is interesting because options A and C are identical as are options B
and D. As you can see by looking at Figure 8.17 , the only difference between them is that one is framed in terms of saving people and the other is framed in terms of killing people. Yet, people become much more risk-averse when the question is framed in terms of potential losses (or deaths).
Figure 8.17 Framing Effects When people are asked which vaccine or treatment they would use to help a hypothetical group of villagers, the option they select is influenced by how the
question is worded or framed. If the question is worded in terms of saving villagers, most people choose Vaccine A. If the question is worded in terms of killing villagers, most people choose Treatment D. Source: Wade Carole; Tavris, Carol, Invitation to Psychology, 2nd Ed., ©2002, p. 121. Adapted and Electronically reproduced
by permissin of Pearson Eduation, Inc., Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.
Belief Perseverance and Confirmation Bias
Whenever we solve a problem or make a decision, we have an opportunity to evaluate the outcome to make sure we got it right and to judge how satisfied we are with the decision. However, feeling satisfied does not necessarily mean we are correct.
Let’s use an example to make this discussion more concrete. Each time there is a mass shooting in the U.S., thousands of gun owners will post messages on social media stating that Americans need to be able to easily purchase more guns in order to protect themselves. Many people (including many Americans), might think this idea is a bit illogical given that easy access to lethal weapons is what makes mass shootings so prevalent in that country. However, gun lovers often engage in (at least) two cognitive biases in order to maintain their beliefs.
One cognitive bias is belief perseverance , when an individual believes he or she has the solution to the problem or the correct answer for a question and will hold onto that belief even in the face of evidence against it. So, gun advocates will oppose any form of gun control even when presented with evidence from other countries (e.g., Australia) showing that preventing the public from owning assault rifles reduces or even eliminates mass shootings.
A second cognitive bias is the confirmation bias , when an individual searches for (or pays attention to) only evidence that will confirm his or her beliefs instead of evidence that might disconfirm them. To continue our example, gun advocates will often present statistics showing that particular U.S. states with strict gun laws still have high crime rates. These data are consistent with the claim that limiting gun access does not reduce crime. Of course, it ignores a
great deal of evidence suggesting that limiting gun access also makes it more difficult for ordinary citizens to commit gun-related violence. In other words, it is a selective representation of the data. The goal of these paragraphs isn’t to pick on gun enthusiasts or Americans! But, as mass shootings become more and more common, it is worth looking at some of the biases that are influencing the discussions around these issues.
Brain-imaging research provides an interesting perspective on belief perseverance and confirmation bias. This research shows that people treat evidence in ways that minimize negative or uncomfortable feelings while
maximizing positive feelings (Westen et al., 2006). For example, one American study examined the brain regions and self-reported feelings involved in interpreting information about presidential candidates during the 2004 campaign. The participants were all deeply committed to either the Republican (George “Dubya” Bush) or Democratic (John Kerry) candidate, and they all encountered information that was politically threatening toward each candidate (in this case, evidence that the candidate had contradicted himself). As you can see from the
results in Figure 8.18 , participants had strong emotional reactions to threatening (self-contradictory) information about their own candidate, but not to the alternative candidate, or a relatively neutral person, such as a retired network news anchor. Analyses of the brain scans demonstrated that participants from both political parties engaged in motivated reasoning. When the threat was directed at the participant’s own candidate, brain areas associated with ignoring or suppressing information were more active, whereas few of the regions
associated with logical thinking were activated (Westen et al., 2006).
Figure 8.18 Ratings of Perceived Contradictions in Political Statements Democrats and Republicans reached very different conclusions about candidates’ contradictory statements. Democrats readily identified the opponent’s contradictions but were less likely to do so for their own candidate; the same was true for Republican responders. Source: Westen, D., Blagov, P. S., & Harenski, K. (2006). Neural bases for motivated reasoning: An fMRI study of emotional
constraints on partisan political judgment in the 2004 U.S. presidential election. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 18, 1974–
1958. Reprinted with permission of MIT Press.
These data demonstrate that a person’s beliefs can influence their observable behavioural responses to information as well as the brain activity underlying these behaviours. As we shall see, decision making—and our happiness with those decisions—can also be influenced by a person’s personality.
Working the Scientific Literacy Model Maximizing and Satisficing in Complex Decisions
One privilege of living in a technologically advanced, democratic society is that we get to make many decisions for ourselves. However, for each decision there can be more choices than we can possibly consider. As a result, two types of consumers have
emerged in our society. Satisficers are individuals who seek to make decisions that are, simply put, “good enough.” In contrast,
maximizers are individuals who attempt to evaluate every option for every choice until they find the perfect fit. Most people exhibit some of both behaviours, satisficing at times and maximizing at other times. However, if you consider all the people you know, you can probably identify at least one person who is an extreme maximizer—he or she will always be comparing products, jobs, classes, and so on, to find out who has made the best decisions. At the same time, you can probably identify an extreme satisficer —the person who will be satisfied with his or her choices as long as they are “good enough.”
What do we know about maximizing and satisficing? If one person settles for the good-enough option while another searches until he finds the best possible option, which individual do you think will be happier with the decision in the end? Most people believe the maximizer will be happier, but this is not always the case. In fact, researchers such as Barry Schwartz of Swarthmore College and his colleagues have no shortage of data
about the paradox of choice, the observation that more choices can lead to less satisfaction. In one study, the researchers asked participants to recollect both large (more than $100) and small (less than $10) purchases and report the number of options they considered, the time spent shopping and making the decision, and the overall satisfaction with the purchase. Sure enough, those who ranked high on a test of maximization invested more time and effort, but were actually less pleased with the outcome
(Schwartz et al., 2002).
In another study, researchers questioned recent university graduates about their job search process. Believe it or not, maximizers averaged 20% higher salaries, but were less happy
about their jobs than satisficers (Iyengar et al., 2006). This outcome occurred even though we would assume that
maximizers would be more careful when selecting a job—if humans were perfectly logical decision makers.
So, now we know that just the presence of alternative choices can drive down satisfaction—but how can that be?
How can science explain maximizing and satisficing? To answer this question, researchers asked participants to read vignettes that included a trade-off between number of choices
and effort (Dar-Nimrod et al., 2009). Try this example for yourself:
Your cleaning supplies (e.g., laundry detergent, rags, carpet cleaner,
dish soap, toilet paper, glass cleaner) are running low. You have the
option of going to the nearest grocery store (5 minutes away), which
offers 4 alternatives for each of the items you need, or you can drive to
the grand cleaning superstore (25 minutes away), which offers 25
different alternatives for each of the items (for approximately the same
price). Which store would you go to?
In the actual study, maximizers were much more likely to spend the extra time and effort to have more choices. Thus, if you decided to go to the store with more options, you are probably a maximizer. What this scenario does not tell us is whether having more or fewer choices was pleasurable for either maximizers or satisficers.
See how well you understand the nature of maximizers and satisficers by predicting the results of the next study: Participants
at the University of British Columbia completed a taste test of one piece of chocolate, but they could choose this piece of chocolate from an array of 6 pieces or an array of 30 pieces. When there were 6 pieces, who was happier—maximizers or satisficers? What happened when there were 30 pieces to choose from? As
you can see in Table 8.2 , the maximizers were happier when
there were fewer options. On a satisfaction scale indicating how much they enjoyed the piece of chocolate that they selected, the maximizers scored higher in the 6-piece condition (5.64 out of 7)
than in the 30-piece condition (4.73 out of 7; Dar-Nimrod et al., 2009). In contrast, satisficers did not show a statistical difference between the conditions (5.44 and 6.00 for the 6-piece and 30- piece conditions, respectively).
Table 8.2 Satisfaction of Maximizers and Satisficers
6 Alternatives 30 Alternatives Difference
Maximizers 5.64 4.73 −0.91
Satisficers 5.44 6.00 +0.46
Source: Adapted from Dar-Nimrod et al. (2009). The Maximization Paradox: The costs of
seeking alternatives. Personality and Individual Differences, 46, 631–635, Figure 1 and Table 1.
Can we critically evaluate this information? One hypothesis that seeks to explain the dissatisfaction of maximizers suggests that they invest more in the decision, so they expect more from the outcome. Imagine that a satisficer and a maximizer purchase the same digital camera for $175. The maximizer may have invested significantly more time and effort
into the decision so, in effect, she feels like she paid considerably more for the camera.
Regardless of the explanation, we should keep in mind that maximizers and satisficers are preexisting categories. People cannot be randomly assigned to be in one category or another, so these findings represent the outcomes of quasi-experimental
research (see Module 2.2 ). We cannot be sure that the act of maximizing leads to dissatisfaction based on these data. Perhaps maximizers are the people who are generally less satisfied, which in turn leads to maximizing behaviour.
Why is this relevant? Although we described maximizing and satisficing in terms of purchasing decisions, you might also notice that these styles of decision making can be applied to other situations, such as multiple-choice exams. Do you select the first response that sounds reasonable (satisficing), or do you carefully review each of the responses and compare them to one another before marking your choice (maximizing)? Once you make your choice, do you stick with it, believing it is good enough (satisficing), or are you willing to change your answer to make the best possible choice (maximizing)? Despite the popular wisdom that you should never change your first response, there may be an advantage to maximizing on exams. Research focusing on more than 1500 individual examinations showed that when people changed their answers, they changed them from incorrect to correct 51% of the time, from correct to incorrect 25% of the time, and from incorrect
to another incorrect option 23% of the time (Kruger et al., 2005).
The research discussed above suggests that there are some aspects of our consumer-based society that might actually be making us less happy. This seems counterintuitive given that the overwhelming number of product options
available to us almost guarantees that we will get exactly what we want (or think we want). It’s worth thinking about how the different biases discussed in this
module relate to your own life. By examining how your thinking is affected by different heuristics and biases, you will gain some interesting insights into why you behave the way you do. You will also be able to increase the amount of control you have over your own life.
Module 8.2b Quiz:
Judgment and Decision Making
Know . . . 1. When an individual makes judgments based on how easily things come
to mind, he or she is employing the heuristic. A. confirmation B. representativeness C. availability D. belief perseverance
Understand . . . 2. Belief perseverance seems to function by
A. maximizing positive feelings. B. minimizing negative feelings. C. maximizing negative feelings while minimizing positive feelings. D. minimizing negative feelings while maximizing positive feelings.
Analyze . . . 3. Why do psychologists assert that heuristics are beneficial for problem
solving?
A. Heuristics increase the amount of time we spend arriving at good solutions to problems.
B. Heuristics decrease our chances of errors dramatically. C. Heuristics help us make decisions efficiently. D. Heuristics are considered the most logical thought pattern for
problem solving.
4. The fact that humans so often rely on heuristics is evidence that A. humans are not always rational thinkers. B. it is impossible for humans to think logically. C. it is impossible for humans to use algorithms. D. humans will always succumb to the confirmation bias.
Module 8.2 Summary
algorithms
anchoring effect
availability heuristic
belief perseverance
confirmation bias
conjunction fallacy
functional fixedness
heuristics
mental set
problem solving
representativeness heuristic
All problems involve people attempting to reach some sort of goal; this goal can be an observable behaviour like learning to serve a tennis ball or a cognitive behaviour like learning Canada’s ten provincial capitals. This process involves forming strategies that will allow the person to reach the goal. It may also require a person to overcome one or more obstacles along the way.
Many obstacles arise from the individual’s mental set, which occurs when a person focuses on only one potential solution and does not consider alternatives.
Know . . . the key terminology of problem solving and decision making.
8.2a
Understand . . . the characteristics that problems have in common.8.2b
Understand . . . how obstacles to problem solving are often self- imposed.
8.2c
Similarly, functional fixedness can arise when an individual does not consider alternative uses for familiar objects.
Apply Activity Rate the following items on a scale from 1 (completely disagree) to 7 (completely agree), with 4 being a neutral response.
1. Whenever I’m faced with a choice, I try to imagine what all the other possibilities are, even ones that aren’t present at the moment.
2. No matter how satisfied I am with my job, it’s only right for me to be on the lookout for better opportunities.
3. When I am in the car listening to the radio, I often check other stations to see whether something better is playing, even if I am relatively satisfied with what I’m listening to.
4. When I watch TV, I channel surf, often scanning through the available options even while attempting to watch one program.
5. I treat relationships like clothing: I expect to try a lot on before finding the perfect fit.
6. I often find it difficult to shop for a gift for a friend. 7. When shopping, I have a difficult time finding clothing that I really love. 8. No matter what I do, I have the highest standards for myself. 9. I find that writing is very difficult, even if it’s just writing to a friend,
because it’s so difficult to word things just right. I often do several drafts of even simple things.
10. I never settle for second best.
When you are finished, average your ratings together to find your overall score. Scores greater than 4 indicate maximizers; scores less than 4 indicate satisficers. Approximately one-third of the population scores below 3.25 and approximately one-third scores above 4.75. Where does your score place you?
Apply . . . your knowledge to determine if you tend to be a maximizer or a satisficer.
8.2d
Analyze . . . whether human thought is primarily logical or intuitive.8.2e
This module provides ample evidence that humans are not always logical. Heuristics are helpful decision-making and problem-solving tools, but they do not always follow logical principles. Even so, the abundance of heuristics does not mean that humans are never logical; instead, they simply point to the limits of our rationality.
Module 8.3 Language and Communication
Manuela Hartling/Reuters
Learning Objectives
Know . . . the key terminology from the study of language. Understand . . . how language is structured. Understand . . . how genes and the brain are involved in language use. Apply . . . your knowledge to distinguish between units of language such as phonemes and morphemes. Analyze . . . whether species other than humans are able to use language.
8.3a 8.3b 8.3c 8.3d
8.3e
Dog owners are known for attributing a lot of intelligence, emotion, and “humanness” to their canine pals. Sometimes they may appear to go overboard—such as Rico’s owners, who claimed their border collie understood 200 words, most of which referred to different toys and objects he liked to play with. His owners claimed that they could show Rico a toy, repeat its name a few times, and toss the toy into a pile of other objects; Rico would then retrieve the object upon verbal command. Rico’s ability appeared to go well beyond the usual “sit,” “stay,” “heel,” and perhaps a few other words that dog owners expect their companions to understand.
Claims about Rico’s language talents soon drew the attention of scientists, who skeptically questioned whether the dog was just responding to cues by the owners, such as their possible looks or gestures toward the object they asked their pet to retrieve. The scientists set up a carefully controlled experiment in which no one present in the room knew the location of the object that was requested. Rico correctly retrieved 37 out of 40 objects. The experimenters then tested the owners’ claim that Rico could learn object names in just one trial. Rico again confirmed his owners’ claims, and the researchers concluded that his ability to understand new words was comparable to that of a three-year-
old child (Kaminski et al., 2004).
However, as you will see in this module, Rico’s abilities, while impressive, are dwarfed by those of humans. Our ability to reorganize words into complex thoughts is unique in the animal kingdom and may even have aided our survival as a species.
Focus Questions
1. What is the difference between language and other forms of communication?
2. Might other species, such as chimpanzees, also be capable of learning human language?
Communication happens just about anywhere you can find life. Dogs bark, cats meow, monkeys chatter, and mice can emit sounds undetectable to the human ear when communicating. Honeybees perform an elaborate dance to
communicate the direction, distance, and quality of food sources (von Frisch, 1967). Animals even communicate by marking their territories with their distinct scent, much to the chagrin of the world’s fire hydrants. Language is among the ways that humans communicate. It is quite unlike the examples of animal communication mentioned previously. So what differentiates language from these other forms of communication? And, what is it about our brains that enables us to turn different sounds and lines into the sophisticated languages found across different human cultures?
What Is Language?
Language is one of the most intensively studied areas in all of psychology. Thousands of experiments have been performed to identify different characteristics of language as well as the brain regions associated with them. But, all fields of study have a birthplace. In the case of the scientific study of language, it began with an interesting case study of a patient in Paris in the early 1860s.
Early Studies of Language
In 1861, Paul Broca, a physician and founder of the Society of Anthropology of Paris, heard of an interesting medical case. The patient appeared to show a very specific impairment resulting from a stroke suffered 21 years earlier. He could understand speech and had fairly normal mental abilities; however, he had great
difficulty producing speech and often found himself uttering single words separated by pauses (uh, er . . .). In fact, this patient acquired the nickname “Tan” because it was one of the only sounds that he could reliably produce. Tan
had what is known as aphasia , a language disorder caused by damage to the
brain structures that support using and understanding language.
Tan died a few days after being examined by Broca. During the autopsy, Broca noted that the brain damage appeared primarily near the back of the frontal lobes in the left hemisphere. Over the next couple of years, Broca found 12 other patients with similar symptoms and similar brain damage, indicating that Tan was
not a unique case. This region of the left frontal lobe that controls our ability to articulate speech sounds that compose words is now known as Broca’s area
(see Figure 8.19 ). The symptoms associated with damage to this region, as seen in Tan, are known as Broca’s aphasia.
Figure 8.19 Two Language Centres of the Brain Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas of the cerebral cortex are critical to language function.
The fact that a brain injury could affect one part of language while leaving others preserved suggested that the ability to use language involves a number of different processes using different areas of the brain. In the years following the publication of Broca’s research, other isolated language impairments were discovered. In 1874, a young Prussian (German) physician named Carl
Wernicke published a short book detailing his study of different types of aphasia. Wernicke noted that some of his patients had trouble with language
comprehension rather than language production. These patients typically had damage to the posterior superior temporal gyrus (the back and top part of the
temporal lobe). This region, now known as Wernicke’s area , is the area of the brain most associated with finding the meaning of words (see Figure 8.19 ). Damage to this area results in Wernicke’s aphasia, a language disorder in which a person has difficulty understanding the words he or she hears. These patients are also unable to produce speech that other people can understand— the words are spoken fluently and with a normal intonation and accent, but these words seem randomly thrown together (i.e., what is being said does not make sense). Consider the following example:
Examiner: I’d like to have you tell me something about your problem.
Person with Wernicke’s aphasia: Yes, I, ugh, cannot hill all of my way. I cannot talk all of the things I do, and part of the part I can go alright, but I cannot tell from the other people. I usually most of my things. I know what can I talk and know what they are, but I cannot always come back even though I know they should be in, and I know should something eely I should know what I’m doing . . .
The important thing to look for in this sample of speech is how the wrong words appear in an otherwise fluent stream of utterances. Contrast this with an example of Broca’s aphasia:
Examiner: Tell me, what did you do before you retired?
Person with Broca’s aphasia: Uh, uh, uh, pub, par, partender, no.
Examiner: Carpenter?
Person with Broca’s aphasia: (Nodding to signal yes) Carpenter, tuh, tuh, twenty year.
Notice that the individual has no trouble understanding the question or coming
up with the answer. His difficulty is in producing the word carpenter and then putting it into an appropriate phrase. Did you also notice the missing “s” from
twenty year? This is another characteristic of Broca’s aphasia: The individual words are often produced without normal grammatical flair: no articles, suffixes, or prefixes.
Broca’s aphasia can include some difficulties in comprehending language as well. In general, the more complex the sentence structure, the more difficult it will be to understand. Compare these two sentences:
The girl played the piano.
The piano was played by the girl.
These are two grammatically correct sentences (although the second is somewhat awkward) that have the same meaning but are structured differently. Patients with damage to Broca’s area would find it much more difficult to understand the second sentence than the first. This impairment suggests that the distinction between speech production and comprehension is not as simple as was first thought. Indeed, as language became a central topic of research in psychology, researchers quickly realized that this ability—or set of abilities—is among the most complex processes humans perform.
Properties of Language
Language, like many other cognitive abilities, flows so automatically that we often overlook how complicated it really is. However, cases like those described above show us that language is indeed a complex set of skills. Researchers
define language as a form of communication that involves the use of spoken, written, or gestural symbols that are combined in a rule-based form. With this definition in mind, we can distinguish which features of language make it a unique form of communication.
Language can involve communication about objects and events that are not in the present time and place. We can use language to talk about events happening on another planet or that are happening within atoms. We can also use different tenses to indicate that the topic of the sentence occurred or
will occur at a different time. For instance, you can say to your roommate, “I’m going to order pizza tonight,” without her thinking the pizza is already there.
Languages can produce entirely new meanings. It is possible to produce a sentence that has never been uttered before in the history of humankind, simply by reorganizing words in different ways. As long as you select English words and use correct grammar, others who know the language should be able to understand it. You can also use words in novel ways. Imagine the
tabloid newspaper headline: Bat Boy Found in Cave! In North American culture, “bat boys” are regular kids who keep track of the baseball bats for baseball players. In this particular tabloid, the story concerned a completely novel creature that was part bat and part boy. Both meanings could be
correct, depending upon the context in which the term bat boy is used. Language is passed down from parents to children. As we will discuss later in this module, children learn to pay attention to the particular sounds of their
native language(s) at the expense of other sounds (Werker, 2003). Children also learn words and grammatical rules from parents, teachers, and peers. In
other words, even if we have a natural inclination to learn a language, experience dictates which language(s) we will speak.
Language requires us to link different sounds (or gestures) with different meanings in order to understand and communicate with other people. Therefore, understanding more about these seemingly simple elements of language is essential for understanding language as a whole.
Words can be arranged or combined in novel ways to produce ideas that have never been expressed before. Weekly World News
Phonemes and Morphemes: The Basic Ingredients
of Language
Languages contain discrete units that exist at differing levels of complexity. When people speak, they assemble these units into larger and more complex units. Some psychologists have used a cooking analogy to explain this phenomenon: We all start with the same basic language ingredients, but they
can be mixed together in an unlimited number of ways (Pinker, 1999).
Phonemes are the most basic of units of speech sounds. You can identify phonemes rather easily; the phoneme associated with the letter t (which is written as /t/, where the two forward slashes indicate a phoneme) is found at the
end of the word pot or near the beginning of the word stop. If you pay close attention to the way you use your tongue, lips, and vocal cords, you will see that phonemes have slight variations depending on the other letters around them.
Pay attention to how you pronounce the /t/ phoneme in stop, stash, stink, and stoke. Your mouth will move in slightly different ways each time, and there will be very slight variations in sound, but they are still the same basic phoneme. Individual phonemes typically do not have any meaning by themselves; if you want someone to stop doing something, asking him to /t/ will not suffice.
Morphemes are the smallest meaningful units of a language. Some morphemes are simple words, whereas others may be suffixes or prefixes. For
example, the word pig is a morpheme—it cannot be broken down into smaller units of meaning. You can combine morphemes, however, if you follow the rules
of the language. If you want to pluralize pig, you can add the morpheme /-s/, which will give you pigs. If you want to describe a person as a pig, you can add the morpheme /-ish/ to get piggish. In fact, you can add all kinds of morphemes to a word as long as you follow the rules. You could even say piggable (able to be pigged) or piggify (to turn into a pig). These words do not make much literal sense, but they combine morphemes according to the rules; thus we can make a reasonable guess as to the speaker’s intended meaning. Our ability to combine morphemes into words is one distinguishing feature of language that sets it apart from other forms of communication (e.g., we don’t produce a lengthy series of facial expressions to communicate a new idea). In essence, language gives us
productivity—the ability to combine units of sound into an infinite number of meanings.
Finally, there are the words that make up a language. Semantics is the study of how people come to understand meaning from words. Humans have a knack for this kind of interpretation, and each of us has an extensive mental dictionary to prove it. Not only do normal speakers know tens of thousands of words, but they can often understand new words they have never heard before based on
their understanding of morphemes.
Although phonemes, morphemes, and semantics have an obvious role in spoken language, they also play a role in our ability to read. When you recognize a word,
you effortlessly translate the word’s visual form (known as its orthography) into the sounds that make up that word (known as its phonology or phonological code). These sounds are combined into a word, at which point you can access its meaning or semantics. However, not all people are able to translate
orthography into sounds. Individuals with dyslexia have difficulties translating words into speech sounds. Indeed, children with dyslexia show less activity in the left fusiform cortex (at the bottom of the brain where the temporal and occipital lobes meet), a brain area involved with word recognition and with linking
word and sound representations (Desroches et al., 2010). This difficulty linking letters with phonemes leads to unusually slow reading in both children and adults despite the fact that these people have normal hearing and are cognitively and
neurologically healthy (Desroches & Joanisse, 2009; Shaywitz, 1998).
This research into the specific impairments associated with dyslexia allows scientists and educators to develop treatment programs to help children improve their reading and language abilities. One of the most successful programs has been developed by Maureen Lovett and her colleagues at Sick Kids Hospital in Toronto and Brock University. Their Phonological and Strategy Training (PHAST)
program (now marketed as Empower Reading to earn research money for the hospital) has been used to assist over 6000 students with reading disabilities. Rather than focusing on only one aspect of language, this program teaches children new word-identification and reading-comprehension strategies while also educating them about how words and phrases are structured (so that they know what to expect when they see new words or groups of words). Children who completed these programs showed improvements on a number of
measures of reading and passage comprehension (Frijters et al., 2013; Lovett et al., 2012). Given that 5–15% of the population has some form of reading impairment, treatment programs like PHAST could have a dramatic effect on our educational system.
As you can see, languages derive their complexity from several elements,
TM
including phonemes, morphemes, and semantics. And, when these systems are not functioning properly, language abilities suffer. But phonemes, morphemes, and semantics are just the list of the ingredients of language—we still need to figure out how to mix these ingredients together.
Syntax: The Language Recipe
Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of language is syntax , the rules for combining words and morphemes into meaningful phrases and sentences—the recipe for language. Children master the syntax of their native language before they leave elementary school. They can string together morphemes and words
when they speak, and they can easily distinguish between well-formed and ill- formed sentences. But despite mastering those rules, most speakers cannot tell you what the rules are; syntax just seems to come naturally. It might seem odd that people can do so much with language without a full understanding of its inner workings. Of course, people can also learn how to walk without any understanding of the biochemistry that allows their leg muscles to contract and relax.
The most basic units of syntax are nouns and verbs. They are all that is required
to construct a well-formed sentence, such as Goats eat. Noun–verb sentences are perfectly adequate, if a bit limited, so we build phrases out of nouns and
verbs, as the diagram in Figure 8.20 demonstrates.
Figure 8.20 Syntax Allows Us to Understand Language by the Organization of the Words The rules of syntax help us divide a sentence into noun phrases, verb phrases, and other parts of speech. Source: Adapted from S. Pinker. (1994). The Language Instinct. New York: HarperCollins.
Syntax also helps explain why the order of words in a sentence has such a strong effect on what the sentence means. For example, how would you make a question out of this statement?
A. A goat is in the garden. B. IS a goat in the garden?
This example demonstrates that a statement (A) can be turned into a well-
formed question (B) just by moving the verb is to the beginning of the sentence. Perhaps that is one of the hidden rules of syntax. Try it again:
A. A goat that is eating a flower is in the garden. B. IS a goat that eating a flower is in the garden?
As you can see, the rule “move is to the beginning of the sentence” does not apply in this case. Do you know why? It is because we moved the wrong is. The phrase that is eating a flower is a part of the noun phrase because it describes the goat. We should have moved the is from the verb phrase. Try it again:
A. A goat that is eating a flower is in the garden. B. IS a goat that is eating a flower in the garden?
This is a well-formed sentence. It may be grammatically awkward, but the syntax
is understandable (Pinker, 1994).
As you can see from these examples, the order of words in a sentence helps determine what the sentence means, and syntax is the set of rules we use to determine that order.
Pragmatics: The Finishing Touches
If syntax is the recipe for language, pragmatics is the icing on the cake. Pragmatics is the study of nonlinguistic elements of language use. It places heavy emphasis on the speaker’s behaviours and the social situation (Carston, 2002).
Pragmatics reminds us that sometimes what is said is not as important as how it is said. For example, a student who says, “I ate a 50-pound cheeseburger,” is most likely stretching the truth, but you probably would not call him a liar. Pragmatics helps us understand what he implied. The voracious student was
actually flouting—or blatantly disobeying—a rule of language in a way that is obvious (Grice, 1975; Horn & Ward, 2004). There are all sorts of ways in which flouting the rules can lead to implied, rather than literal, meanings; a sample of
these are shown in Table 8.3 .
Table 8.3 Pragmatic Rules Guiding Language Use
The Rule Flouting the Rule The Implication
Say what
you believe
is true.
My roommate is a
giraffe.
He does not really live with a giraffe. Maybe
his roommate is very tall?
Say only
what is
relevant.
Is my blind date
good-looking? He’s
got a great
personality.
She didn’t answer my question. He’s probably
not good-looking.
Say only
as much as
you need
to.
I like my lab partner,
but he’s no Einstein.
Of course he’s not Einstein. Why is she
bothering to tell me this? She probably means
that her partner is not very smart.
Importantly, pragmatics depends upon both the speaker (or writer) and listener (or reader) understanding that rules are being flouted in order to produce a desired meaning. If you speak with visitors from a different country, you may find that they don’t understand what you mean when you flout the rules of Canadian English or use slang (shortened language). When we say “The goalie stood on his head,” most hockey-mad Canadians understand that we are commenting on a goaltender’s amazing game; however, someone new to hockey would be baffled by this expression. This is another example of how experience—in this case with a culture—influences how we use and interpret language.
Module 8.3a Quiz:
What Is Language?
Know . . . 1. What are the rules that govern how words are strung together into
meaningful sentences?
A. Semantics B. Pragmatics C. Morphemics D. Syntax
2. The study of how people extract meaning from words is called . A. syntax B. pragmatics C. semantics D. flouting
Understand . . . 3. Besides being based in a different region of the brain, a major distinction
between Broca’s aphasia and Wernicke’s aphasia is that
A. words from people with Broca’s aphasia are strung together fluently, but often make little sense.
B. Broca’s aphasia is due to a FOXP2 mutation. C. Wernicke’s aphasia results in extreme stuttering. D. words from people with Wernicke’s aphasia are strung together
fluently, but often make little sense.
Apply . . . 4. is an example of a morpheme, while is a phoneme.
A. /dis/; /ta/ B. /a/; /like/ C. /da/; /ah/ D. /non/; /able/
The Development of Language
Human vocal tracts are capable of producing approximately 200 different phonemes. However, no language uses all of these sounds. Jul’hoan, one of the “clicking languages” of Botswana, contains almost 100 sounds (including over 80 different consonant sounds). In contrast, English contains about 40 sounds. But, if Canadians are genetically identical to people in southern Africa, why are our languages different? And, why can’t we produce and distinguish between some of the sounds of these other languages? It turns out that experience plays a major role in your ability to speak the language, or languages, that you do.
Infants, Sound Perception, and Language
Acquisition
Say the following phrase out loud: “Your doll.” Now, say this phrase: “This doll.”
Did you notice a difference in how you pronounced doll in these two situations? If English is your first language, it is quite likely that you didn’t notice the slight change in how the letter “d” was expressed. But, Hindi speakers would have no
problem making this distinction. To them, the two instances of the word doll would be pronounced differently and would mean lentils and branch, respectively.
Janet Werker of the University of British Columbia and her colleagues found that very young English-learning infants are able to distinguish between these two “d” sounds. But, by 10 months of age, the infants begin hearing sounds in a way that is consistent with their native language; because English has only one “d” sound, English-learning infants stop detecting the difference between these two sounds
(Werker & Tees, 1984; Werker et al., 2012). This change is not a weakness on the part of English-learning infants. Rather, it is evidence that they are learning the statistical principles of their language. Infants who hear only English words will group different pronunciations of the letter “d” into one category because that is how this sound is used in English. Hindi-learning children will learn to separate different types of “d” sounds because this distinction is important. A related study using two “k” sounds from an Interior Salish (First Nations) language from British Columbia produced similar results—English-learning infants showed a significant drop-off in hearing sounds for the non-English language after 8–10 months
(Werker & Tees, 1984).
In addition to becoming experts at identifying the sounds of their own language, infants also learn how to separate a string of sounds into meaningful groups (i.e., into words). Infants as young as two months old show a preference for speech
sounds over perceptually similar non-speech sounds (Vouloumanos & Werker, 2004). And, when presented with pronounceable non-words (e.g., strak), infants prefer to hear words that follow the rules of their language. An English-learning baby would prefer non-words beginning in “str” to those beginning in “rst” because there are a large number of English words that begin with “str”
(Jusczyk et al., 1993). Additionally, newborn infants can distinguish between function words (e.g., prepositions) and content words (e.g., nouns and verbs)
based on their sound properties (Shi et al., 1999). By six months of age, infants prefer the content words (Shi & Werker, 2001), thus showing that they are learning which sounds are most useful for understanding the meaning of a statement.
By the age of 20 months, the children are able to use the perceptual categories that they developed in order to rapidly learn new words. In some cases, children
can perform fast mapping —the ability to map words onto concepts or objects
after only a single exposure. Human children seem to have a fast-mapping capacity that is superior to any other organism on the planet. This skill is one
potential explanation for the naming explosion, a rapid increase in vocabulary size that occurs at this stage of development.
The naming explosion has two biological explanations as well. First, at this stage of development, the brain begins to perform language-related functions in the left hemisphere, similar to the highly efficient adult brain; prior to this stage, this
information was stored and analyzed by both hemispheres (Mills et al., 1997). Second, the naming explosion has also been linked to an increase in the amount of myelin on the brain’s axons, a change that would increase the speed of
communication between neurons (Pujol et al., 2006). These changes would influence not only the understanding of language, but also how a child uses language to convey increasingly complex thoughts such as “How does Spiderman stick to walls?” and “Why did Dad’s hair fall out?”
Producing Spoken Language
Learning to identify and organize speech sounds is obviously an important part of language development. An equally critical skill is producing speech that other people will be able to understand. Early psychologists focused only on behavioural approaches to language learning. They believed that language was learned through imitating sounds and being reinforced for pronouncing and using
words correctly (Skinner, 1985). Although it is certainly true that imitation and reinforcement are involved in language acquisition, they are only one part of this
complex process (Messer, 2000). Here are a few examples that illustrate how learning through imitation and reinforcement is just one component of language development:
Children often produce phrases that include incorrect grammar or word forms. Because adults do not (often) use these phrases, it is highly unlikely that such phrases are imitations.
Children learn irregular verbs and pluralizations on a word-by-word basis. At first, they will use ran and geese correctly. However, when children begin to use grammar on their own, they over-generalize the rules. A child who learns
the /-ed/ morpheme for past tense will start saying runned instead of ran. When she learns that /-s/ means more than one, she will begin to say gooses instead of geese. It is also unlikely that children would produce these forms by imitating.
When children use poor grammar, or when they over-generalize their rules, parents may try to correct them. Although children will acknowledge their parents’ attempts at instruction, this method does not seem to work. Instead, children go right back to over-generalizing.
In light of these and many other examples, it seems clear that an exclusively behaviourist approach falls short in explaining how language is learned. After all, there are profound differences in the success of children and adults in learning a new language: Whereas adults typically struggle, children seem to learn the language effortlessly. If reinforcement and imitation were the primary means by which language was acquired, then adults should be able to learn just as well as children.
The fact that children seem to learn language differently than adults has led
psychologists to use the term language acquisition when referring to children instead of language learning. The study of language acquisition has revealed remarkable similarities among children from all over the world. Regardless of the
language, children seem to develop this capability in stages, as shown in Table 8.4 .
Table 8.4 Milestones in Language Acquisition and Speech
Average Time of Onset
(Months)
Milestone Example
1–2 Cooing Ahhh, ai-ai-ai
4–10 Babbling (consonants start) Ab-ah-da-ba
8–16 Single-word stage Up, mama, papa
24 Two-word stage Go potty
24+ Complete, meaningful phrases
strung together
I want to talk to
Grandpa.
Sensitive Periods for Language
The phases of language development described above suggest that younger brains are particularly well-suited to acquiring languages; this is not the case for older brains. Imagine a family with two young children who immigrated to Canada from a remote Russian village where no one spoke English. The parents would struggle with English courses, while the children would attend English- speaking schools. Within a few years, the parents would have accumulated some vocabulary but they would likely still have difficulty with pronunciation and
grammar (Russian-speaking people often omit articles such as the). Meanwhile, their children would likely pick up English without much effort and have language skills equivalent to those of their classmates; they would have roughly the same vocabulary, the same accents, and even the same slang.
Why can children pick up a language so much more easily than adults? Most
psychologists agree that there is a sensitive period for language—a time during childhood in which children’s brains are primed to develop language skills (see
also Module 10.1 ). Children can absorb language almost effortlessly, but this ability seems to fade away starting around age seven. Thus, when families immigrate to a country that uses a different language, young children are able to
pick up this language much more quickly than their parents (Hakuta et al., 2003; Hernandez & Li, 2007).
A stunning example of critical periods comes from Nicaragua. Until 1979, there was no sign language in this Central American country. Because there were no schools for people with hearing impairments, there was no (perceived) need for a common sign language. When the first schools for the deaf were established, adults and teenaged students attempted to learn to read lips. While few mastered this skill, these students did do something even more astonishing:
They developed their own primitive sign language. This language, Lenguaje de Signos Nicaragüese (LSN), involves a number of elaborate gestures similar to a game of charades and did not have a consistent set of grammatical rules. But, it was a start. Children who attended these schools at an early age (i.e., during the sensitive period for language acquisition) used this language as the basis for a
more fluent version of sign language: Idioma de Signos Nicaragüese (ISN). ISN has grammatical rules and can be used to express a number of complicated,
abstract ideas (Pinker, 1994). It is now the standard sign language in Nicaragua. The difference between LSN and ISN is similar to the difference between adults and children learning a new language. If you acquire the new language during childhood, you will be much more fluent than if you try to acquire it during
adulthood (Senghas, 2003; Senghas et al., 2004).
The Bilingual Brain
Let’s go back to the example of the Russian-speaking family who immigrated to balmy Canada. The young children learning English would also be speaking Russian at home with their parents. As a result, they would be learning two languages essentially at the same time. What effect would this situation have on their ability to learn each language?
Although bilingualism leads to many benefits (see below), there are some costs to learning more than one language. Bilingual children tend to have a smaller
vocabulary in each language than unilingual children (Mahon & Crutchley, 2006). In adulthood, this difference is shown not by vocabulary size, but by how easily bilinguals can access words. Compared to unilingual adults, bilingual
adults are slower at naming pictures (Roberts et al., 2002), have more difficulty on tests that ask them to list words starting with a particular letter (Rosselli et al., 2000), have more tip-of-the-tongue experiences in which they can’t quite retrieve a word (Gollan & Acenas, 2004), and are slower and less accurate when making word/non-word judgments (Ransdell & Fischler, 1987). These problems with accessing words may be due to the fact that they use each
language less than a unilingual person would use their single language (Michael & Gollan, 2005).
The benefits of bilingualism, however, appear to far outweigh the costs. One difference that has been repeatedly observed is that bilingual individuals are much better than their unilingual counterparts on tests that require them to
control their attention or their thoughts. These abilities, known as executive functions (or executive control), enable people who speak more than one language to inhibit one language while speaking and listening to another (or to limit the interference across languages). If they didn’t, they would produce
confusing sentences like The chien is tres sick. Although most of you can figure out that this person is talking about a sick dog, you can see how such sentences would make communication challenging. Researchers have found that bilinguals score better than unilinguals on tests of executive control throughout the
lifespan, beginning in infancy (Kovacs & Mehler, 2009) and the toddler years (Poulin-Dubois et al., 2011) and continuing throughout adulthood (Costa et al., 2008) and into old age (Bialystok et al., 2004). Bilingualism has also recently been shown to have important health benefits. Because the executive control involved with bilingualism uses areas in the frontal lobes, these regions may form
more connections in bilinguals than unilinguals (Bialystok, 2009, 2011a, 2011b). As a result, these brains likely have more back-up systems if damage occurs. Indeed, Ellen Bialystok at York University and her colleagues have shown that being bilingual helps protect against the onset of dementia and Alzheimer’s
disease (Bialystok et al., 2007; Schweizer et al., 2012), a finding that leaves many at a loss for words.
Module 8.3b Quiz:
The Development of Language
Know . . . 1. What is fast mapping?
A. The rapid rate at which chimpanzees learn sign language B. The ability of children to map concepts to words with only a single
example
C. The very short period of time that language input can be useful for language development
D. A major difficulty that people face when affected by Broca’s
aphasia
Understand . . . 2. The term “sensitive period” is relevant to language acquisition because
A. exposure to language is needed during this time for language abilities to develop normally.
B. Broca’s area is active only during this period. C. it is what distinguishes humans from the apes. D. it indicates that language is an instinct.
Analyze . . . 3. What is the most accurate conclusion from studies of bilingualism and the
brain?
A. Being bilingual causes the brain to form a larger number of connections than it normally would.
B. Being bilingual reduces the firing rate of the frontal lobes. C. Only knowing one language allows people to improve their
executive functioning.
D. Being bilingual makes it more likely that a person will have language problems if they suffer brain damage.
Genes, Evolution, and Language
This module began with a discussion of two brain areas that are critical for language production and comprehension: Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area, respectively. But, these brain areas didn’t appear out of nowhere. Rather, genetics and evolutionary pressures led to the development of our language- friendly brains. Given recent advances in our understanding of the human
genome (see Module 3.1 ), it should come as no surprise that researchers are actively searching for the genes involved with language abilities.
Working the Scientific Literacy Model Genes and Language
Given that language is a universal trait of the human species, it likely involves a number of different genes. These genes would, of course, also interact with the environment. In this section we examine whether it is possible that specific genes are related to language.
What do we know about genes and language? Many scientists believe that the evidence is overwhelming that language is a unique feature of the human species, and that language evolved to solve problems related to survival and reproductive fitness. Language adds greater efficiency to thought, allows us to transmit information without requiring us to have direct experience with potentially dangerous situations, and, ultimately, facilitates communicating social needs and desires. Claims that language promotes survival and reproductive success are difficult to test directly with scientific experimentation, but there is a soundness to the logic of the speculation. We can also move beyond speculation and actually examine how genes play a role in human language. As with all complex psychological traits, there are likely many genes associated with language. Nevertheless, amid all of these myriad possibilities, one gene has been identified that is of particular importance.
How can science explain a genetic basis of language? Studies of this gene have primarily focused on the KE family (their name is abbreviated to maintain their confidentiality). Many members of this family have inherited a mutated version of a
gene on chromosome 7 (see Figure 8.21 ; Vargha-Khadem et al., 2005). Each gene has a name—and this one is called FOXP2. All humans carry a copy of the FOXP2 gene, but the KE
family passes down a mutated copy. Those who inherit the mutated copy have great difficulty putting thoughts into words
(Tomblin et al., 2009). Thus, it appears that the physical and chemical processes that FOXP2 codes for are related to language function.
Figure 8.21 Inheritance Pattern for the Mutated FOXP2 Gene in the KE Family
Family members who are “affected” have inherited a mutated form of the FOXP2 gene, which results in difficulty with articulating words. As you can see from the centre of the figure, the mutated gene is traced to a female family member and has been passed on to the individuals of the next two generations. Source: Republished with permission of Nature Publishing Group, from FOXP2 and the
neuroanatomy of speech and language, Fig. 1, Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 6, 131–138 by
Faraneh Vargha-Khadem; David G. Gadian; Andrew Copp; Mortimer Mishkin. Copyright 2005;
permission conveyed through Copyright Clearance Center, Inc.
What evidence indicates that this gene is specifically involved in language? If you were to ask the members of the family who inherited the mutant form of the gene to speak about how to change the batteries in a flashlight, they would be at a loss. A rather jumbled mixture of sounds and words might come out, but nothing that could be easily understood. However, these same individuals have no problem actually performing the task. Their challenges with using language are primarily restricted to the use
of words, not with their ability to think.
Scientists have used brain-imaging methods to further test whether the FOXP2 mutation affects language. One group of researchers compared brain activity of family members who inherited the mutation of FOXP2 with those who did not
(Liégeois et al., 2003). During the brain scans, the participants were asked to generate words themselves, and also to repeat
words back to the experimenters. As you can see from Figure 8.22 , the members of the family who were unaffected by the mutation showed normal brain activity: Broca’s area of the left hemisphere became activated, just as expected. In contrast, Broca’s area in the affected family members was silent, and the brain activity that did occur was unusual for this type of task.
Figure 8.22 Brain Scans Taken While Members of the KE Family Completed a Speech Task
The unaffected group shows a normal pattern of activity in Broca’s area, while the affected group shows an unusual pattern. Source: Republished with permission of Nature Publishing Group, from Source: Language fMRI
abnormalities associated with FOXP2 gene mutation, Figure 1, Nature Neuroscience, 6, 1230–1237,
Copyright © 2003. permission conveyed through Copyright Clearance Center, Inc.
Can we critically evaluate this evidence? As you have now read, language has multiple components. Being able to articulate words is just one of many aspects of using and understanding language. The research on FOXP2 is very important, but reveals only how a single gene relates to one aspect of language use. There are almost certainly a large
number of different genes working together to produce each component of language. To their credit, FOXP2 researchers are quick to point out that many other genes will need to be identified before we can claim to understand the genetic basis of language; FOXP2 is just the beginning.
It is also worth noting that although the FOXP2 gene affects human speech production, it does occur in other species that do not produce sophisticated language. This gene is found in both mice and birds as well as in humans, and the human version shares a very similar molecular structure to the versions observed in these other species. Interestingly, the molecular structure and activity of the FOXP2 gene in songbirds (unlike non-songbirds) is similar to that in humans, again highlighting its
possible role in producing meaningful sounds (Vargha-Khadem et al., 2005).
Why is this relevant? This work illuminates at least part of the complex relationship between genes and language. Other individual genes that have direct links to language function will likely be discovered as research continues. It is possible that this information could be used to help us further understand the genetic basis of language disorders. The fact that the FOXP2 gene is found in many other species suggests that it may play a role in one of the components
of language rather than being the gene for language. Thus, scientists will have to perform additional research in order to understand why and how human language became so much more complex than that of any other species.
The fact that animals such as songbirds have some of the same language-
related genes as humans suggests that other species may have some language abilities. As it turns out, many monkey species have areas in their brains that are similar to Broca’s and Wernicke’s area. As in humans, these regions are connected by white-matter pathways, thus allowing them to communicate with
each other (Galaburda & Pandya, 1982). These areas appear to be involved with the control of facial and throat muscles and with identifying when other monkeys have made a vocalization. This is, of course, a far cry from human language. But, the fact that some monkey species have similar “neural hardware” to humans does lead to some interesting speculations about language abilities in the animal kingdom.
Can Animals Use Language?
Psychologists have been studying whether nonhuman species can acquire human language for many decades. Formal studies of language learning in nonhuman species gained momentum in the mid-1950s when psychologists
attempted to teach spoken English to a chimpanzee named Viki (Hayes & Hayes, 1951). Viki was cross-fostered , meaning that she was raised as a member of a family that was not of the same species. Like humans, chimps come into the world dependent on adults for care, so the humans who raised Viki were basically foster parents. Although the psychologists learned a lot about how smart chimpanzees can be, they did not learn that Viki was capable of language —she managed to whisper only about four words after several years of trying.
Psychologists who followed in these researchers’ footsteps did not consider the case to be closed. Perhaps Viki’s failure to learn spoken English was a limitation not of the brain, but of physical differences in the vocal tract and tongue that
distinguish humans and chimpanzees. One project that began in the mid-1960s involved teaching chimpanzees to use American Sign Language (ASL). The first chimpanzee involved in this project was named Washoe. The psychologists immersed Washoe in an environment rich with ASL, using signs instead of speaking and keeping at least one adult present and communicating with her throughout the day. By the time she turned two years old, Washoe had acquired about 35 signs through imitation and direct guidance of how to configure and move her hands. Eventually, she learned approximately 200 signs. She was able to generalize signs from one context to another and to use a sign to represent entire categories of objects, not just specific examples. For example, while Washoe learned the sign for the word “open” on a limited number of doors and cupboards, she subsequently signed “open” to many different doors, cupboards, and even her pop bottles. The findings with Washoe were later replicated with
other chimps (Gardner et al., 1989).
Washoe was the first chimpanzee taught to use some of the signs of American Sign Language. Washoe died in 2007 at age 42 and throughout her life challenged many to examine their beliefs about human uniqueness. Photo permission granted by Friends of Washoe
Instead of using sign language, some researchers have developed a completely artificial language to teach to apes. This language consists of symbols called
lexigrams—small keys on a computerized board that represent words and, therefore, can be combined to form complex ideas and phrases. One subject of the research using this language is a bonobo named Kanzi (bonobos are another species of chimpanzee). Kanzi has learned approximately 350 symbols through
training, but he learned his first symbols simply by watching as researchers attempted to teach his mother how to use the language. In addition to the lexigrams he produces, Kanzi seems to recognize about 3000 spoken words. His
trainers claim that Kanzi’s skills constitute language (Savage-Rumbaugh & Lewin, 1994). They argue that he can understand symbols and at least some syntax; that he acquired symbols simply by being around others who used them; and that he produced symbols without specific training or reinforcement. Those who work with Kanzi conclude that his communication skills are quite similar to those of a young human in terms of both the elements of language (semantics and syntax) and the acquisition of language (natural and without effortful training).
Despite their ability to communicate in complex ways, debate continues to swirl about whether these animals are using language. Many language researchers point out that chimpanzees’ signing and artificial language use is very different from how humans use language. Is the vastness of the difference important? Is using 200 signs different in some critical way from being able to use 4000 signs,
roughly the number found in the ASL dictionary (Stokoe et al., 1976)? If our only criterion for whether a communication system constitutes language is the number of words used, then we can say that nonhuman species acquire some language skills after extensive training. But as you have learned in this module, human language involves more than just using words. In particular, our manipulation of phonemes, morphemes, and syntax allow us to utter an infinite number of words and sentences, thereby conveying an infinite number of thoughts.
Kanzi is a bonobo chimpanzee that has learned to use an artificial language consisting of graphical symbols that correspond to words. Kanzi can type out responses by pushing buttons with these symbols, shown in this photo. Researchers are also interested in Kanzi’s ability to understand spoken English (which is transmitted to the headphones by an experimenter who is not in the room). MICHAEL NICHOLS/National Geographic Creative
Some researchers who have worked closely with language-trained apes observed too many critical differences between humans and chimps to conclude
that language extends beyond our species (Seidenberg & Pettito, 1979). For example:
One major argument is that apes are communicating only with symbols, not with the phrase-based syntax used by humans. Although some evidence of syntax has been reported, the majority of their “utterances” consist of single signs, a couple of signs strung together, or apparently random sequences.
There is little reputable experimental evidence showing that apes pass their language skills to other apes.
Productivity—creating new words (gestures) and using existing gestures to name new objects or events—is rare, if it occurs at all.
Some of the researchers become very engaged in the lives of these animals
and talk about them as friends and family members (Fouts, 1997; Savage- Rumbaugh & Lewin, 1994). This tendency has left critics to wonder the extent to which personal attachments to the animals might interfere with the objectivity of the data.
It must be pointed out that the communication systems of different animals have their own adaptive functions. It is possible that some species simply didn’t have a need to develop a complex form of language. However, in the case of chimpanzees, this point doesn’t hold true. Both humans and chimpanzees evolved in small groups in (for the most part) similar parts of the world; thus, chimpanzees would have faced many of the same social and environmental pressures as humans. However, their brains, although quite sophisticated, are not as large or well-developed as those of humans. It seems, therefore, that a major factor in humanity’s unique language abilities is the wonderful complexity and plasticity of the human brain.
Module 8.3c Quiz:
Genes, Evolution, and Language
Know . . . 1. Which nonhuman species has had the greatest success at learning a
human language?
A. Border collies B. Bonobo chimpanzees C. Dolphins D. Rhesus monkeys
Understand . . . 2. Studies of the KE family and the FOXP2 gene indicate that
A. language is controlled entirely by a single gene found on chromosome 7.
B. language is still fluent despite a mutation to this gene. C. this particular gene is related to one specific aspect of language. D. mutations affecting this gene lead to highly expressive language
skills.
Analyze . . . 3. What is the most accurate conclusion from research conducted on
primate language abilities?
A. Primates can learn some aspects of human language, though many differences remain.
B. Primates can learn human language in full. C. Primates cannot learn human language in any way. D. Primates can respond to verbal commands, but there is no
evidence they can respond to visual cues such as images or hand signals.
Module 8.3 Summary
aphasia
Broca’s area
cross-foster
fast mapping
language
morpheme
phoneme
pragmatics
semantics
syntax
Wernicke’s area
Know . . . the key terminology from the study of language.8.3a
Understand . . . how language is structured.8.3b
Sentences are broken down into words that are arranged according to grammatical rules (syntax). The relationship between words and their meaning is referred to as semantics. Words can be broken down into morphemes, the smallest meaningful units of speech, and phonemes, the smallest sound units that make up speech.
Studies of the KE family show that the FOXP2 gene is involved in our ability to speak. However, mutation to this gene does not necessarily impair people’s ability to think. Thus, the FOXP2 gene seems to be important for just one of many aspects of human language. Multiple brain areas are involved in language —two particularly important ones are Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas.
Apply Activity Which of these represent a single phoneme and which represent a morpheme? Do any of them represent both?
1. /dis/ 2. /s/ 3. /k/
Nonhuman species certainly seem capable of acquiring certain aspects of human language. Studies with apes have shown that they can learn and use some sign language or, in the case of Kanzi, an artificial language system involving arbitrary symbols. However, critics have pointed out that many differences between human and nonhuman language use remain.
Understand . . . how genes and the brain are involved in language use.
8.3c
Apply . . . your knowledge to distinguish between units of language such as phonemes and morphemes.
8.3d
Analyze . . . whether species other than humans are able to use language.
8.3e
Chapter 9 Intelligence Testing
9.1 Measuring Intelligence Different Approaches to Intelligence Testing 351
Module 9.1a Quiz 355
The Checkered Past of Intelligence Testing 356
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Beliefs about Intelligence 358
Module 9.1b Quiz 360
Module 9.1 Summary 361
9.2 Understanding Intelligence Intelligence as a Single, General Ability 363
Module 9.2a Quiz 365
Intelligence as Multiple, Specific Abilities 365
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Testing for Fluid and Crystallized Intelligence 366
Module 9.2b Quiz 371
The Battle of the Sexes 371
Module 9.2c Quiz 372
Module 9.2 Summary 373
9.3 Biological, Environmental, and Behavioural Influences on
Intelligence Biological Influences on Intelligence 375
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Brain Size and Intelligence 377
Module 9.3a Quiz 379
Environmental Influences on Intelligence 379
Module 9.3b Quiz 382
Behavioural Influences on Intelligence 382
Module 9.3c Quiz 384
Module 9.3 Summary 384
Module 9.1 Measuring Intelligence
Leilani Muir, who passed away in Alberta in 2016. The Canadian Press/Edmonton Journal
Learning Objectives
Leilani Muir kept trying to get pregnant, but to no avail. Finally, frustrated, she went to her doctor to see if there was a medical explanation. It turned out that there was, but not one that she expected; the doctors found that her fallopian tubes had been surgically destroyed, permanently sterilizing her.
How could someone’s fallopian tubes be destroyed without them knowing? Tragically, forced sterilization was a not uncommon practice in the United States and parts of Canada for almost half of the 20th century. In 1928, Alberta passed the Sexual Sterilization Act, giving doctors the power to sterilize people deemed to be “genetically unfit,” without their consent. One of the criteria that could qualify a person for being genetically unfit was getting a low score on an IQ test, which was the reason for Leilani’s own sterilization.
Leilani Muir is one of the tens of thousands of victims of the misguided application of intelligence tests. Born into a poor farming family near Calgary, Alberta, Leilani was entered by her parents into the Provincial Training School for Mental Defectives when she was 11. A few years later, when given an intelligence test, she scored 64, which was below the 70 point cut-off required by law for forced sterilization. When she was 14, she was told by doctors she needed to have her appendix removed. Trusting the good doctors, she went under the knife, never knowing the
Know . . . the key terminology associated with intelligence and intelligence testing. Understand . . . the reasoning behind the eugenics movements and its use of intelligence tests. Apply . . . the concepts of entity theory and incremental theory to help kids succeed in school. Analyze . . . why it is difficult to remove all cultural bias from intelligence testing.
9.1a
9.1b
9.1c
9.1d
full extent of the surgery she was about to undergo. After the surgery, she was never informed that her fallopian tubes had been destroyed, and had to find out on her own after her many attempts to get pregnant. Later in her life, Leilani had her IQ re-tested. She scored 89, which is close to average.
In 1996, Leilani received some measure of justice. She sued the government of Alberta and won her case, becoming the first person to receive compensation for injustices committed under the Sexual Sterilization Act. For her lifetime of not being able to have children, she received almost $750 000 in damages.
Focus Questions
1. How have intelligence tests been misused in modern society? 2. Why do we have the types of intelligence tests that we have?
What happened to Leilani Muir was terrible and should never have happened. But this story also serves to drive home an extremely important truth about
psychology, and science in general—it is important to measure things properly. This may sound trite, but Leilani’s story underscores the importance of ensuring that the research carried out in psychology and other disciplines is as rigorous as possible. Research isn’t just about writing complicated articles that only scientists and academics read; its real-world implications may ripple through society and affect people’s lives in countless ways. In Leilani’s case, her misfortune was the result of both inhumane policies passed by government and the failure to accurately measure her intelligence. Intelligence is not something like the length or mass of a physical object; there is no “objective” standard to which we can compare our measures to see if they are accurate. Instead, we have to rely upon rigorous testing of our methodologies.
So, how can we measure intelligence accurately? What does science say? As you will see in this module, this question is not easy to answer. Intelligence
measures have a very checkered past, making the whole notion of intelligence one of the most hotly contested areas in all of psychology.
Different Approaches to Intelligence Testing
Intelligence is a surprisingly difficult concept to define. You undoubtedly know people who earn similar grades even though one may seem to be “smarter” than the other. You likely also know people who do very well in school and have “book smarts,” but have difficulty in many other aspects of life, perhaps lacking “street smarts.” Furthermore, you may perceive a person to be intelligent or unintelligent, but how do you know your perceptions are not biased by their confidence, social skills, or other qualities? The history of psychology has seen many different attempts to define and measure intelligence. In this module, we will examine some of the more influential of these attempts, and then explore some of the important social implications of intelligence testing.
Francis Galton believed that intelligence was something people inherit. Thus, he believed that an individual’s relatives were a better predictor of intelligence than practice and effort. Mary Evans Picture Library/Alamy Stock Photo
Intelligence and Perception: Galton’s
Anthropometric Approach
The systematic attempt to measure intelligence in the modern era began with Francis Galton (1822–1911) (who is often given the appellation “Sir,” because he was knighted in 1909). Galton believed that because people learn about the world through their senses, those with superior sensory abilities would be able to learn more about it. Thus, he argued, sensory abilities should be an indicator of a person’s intelligence. In 1884, Galton created a set of 17 sensory tests, such as
the highest and lowest sounds people could hear or their ability to tell the difference between objects of slightly different weights, and began testing
people’s abilities in his anthropometric laboratory. Anthropometrics (literally, “the measurement of people”) referred to methods of measuring physical and mental variation in humans. Galton’s lab attracted many visitors, allowing him to measure the sensory abilities of thousands of people in England (Gillham, 2001).
One of Galton’s colleagues, James McKeen Cattell, took his tests to the United States and began measuring the abilities of university students. This research revealed, however, that people’s abilities on different sensory tests were not correlated with each other, or only very weakly. For example, having exceptional eyesight seemed to signify little about whether one would have exceptional hearing. Clearly, this was a problem, because if two measures don’t correlate well with each other, then they can’t both be indicators of the same thing, in this case, intelligence. Cattell also found that students’ scores on the sensory tests did not predict their grades, which one would expect would also be an indicator of intelligence. As a result, Galton’s approach to measuring intelligence was generally abandoned.
Intelligence and Thinking: The Stanford–Binet Test
In contrast to Galton, a prominent French psychologist, Alfred Binet, argued that intelligence should be indicated by more complex thinking processes, such as memory, attention, and comprehension. This view has influenced most
intelligence researchers up to the present day; they define intelligence as the ability to think, understand, reason, and adapt to or overcome obstacles (Neisser et al., 1996). From this perspective, intelligence reflects how well people are able to reason and solve problems, plus their accumulated knowledge.
In 1904, Binet and his colleague, Theodore Simon, were hired by the French government to develop a test to measure intelligence. At the end of the 19th century, institutional reforms in France had made primary school education available to all children. As a result, French educators struggled to deliver a
curriculum to students ranging from the very bright to those who found school exceptionally challenging. To respond to this problem, the French government wanted an objective way of identifying “retarded” children who would benefit from
specialized education (Siegler, 1992).
Binet and Simon experimented with a wide variety of tasks, trying to capture the complex thinking processes that presumably comprised intelligence. They settled on thirty tasks, arranged in order of increasing difficulty. For example, simple tasks included repeating sentences and defining common words like “house.” More difficult tasks included constructing sentences using combinations of certain words (e.g., Paris, river, fortune), reproducing drawings from memory, and being able to explain how two things differed from each other. Very difficult tasks included being able to define abstract concepts and to logically reason
through a problem (Fancher, 1985).
Binet and Simon gave their test to samples of children from different age groups to establish the average test score for each age. Binet argued that a child’s test
score measured her mental age , the average intellectual ability score for children of a specific age. For example, if a 7-year-old’s score was the same as the average score for 7-year-olds, she would have a mental age of 7, whereas if it was the same as the average score for 10-year-olds, she would have a mental age of 10, even though her chronological age would be 7 in both cases. A child with a mental age lower than her chronological age would be expected to struggle in school and to require remedial education.
The practicality of Binet and Simon’s test was apparent to others, and soon researchers in the United States began to adapt it for their own use. Lewis Terman at Stanford University adapted the test for American children and established average scores for each age level by administering the test to thousands of children. In 1916, he published the first version of his adapted test,
and named it the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale (Siegler, 1992).
Terman and others almost immediately began describing the Stanford-Binet test as a test intended to measure innate levels of intelligence. This differed substantially from Binet, who had viewed his test as a measure of a child’s
current abilities, not as a measure of an innate capacity. There is a crucial difference between believing that test scores reflect a changeable ability or believing they reflect an innate capacity that is presumably fixed. The interpretation of intelligence as an innate ability set the stage for the incredibly misguided use of intelligence tests in the decades that followed, as we discuss later in this module.
To better reflect people’s presumably innate levels of intelligence, Terman
adopted William Stern’s concept of the intelligence quotient, or IQ , a label that has stuck to the present day. IQ is calculated by taking a person’s mental age, dividing it by his chronological age, and then multiplying by 100. For example, a 10-year-old child with a mental age of 7 would have an IQ of 7/10 × 100 = 70. On the other hand, if a child’s mental and chronological ages were the same, the IQ score would always be 100, regardless of the age of the child; thus, 100 became the standard IQ for the “average child.”
To see the conceptual difference implied by these two ways of reporting intelligence, consider the following two statements. Does one sound more optimistic than the other?
He has a mental age of 7, so he is 3 years behind. He has an IQ of 70, so he is 30 points below average.
To many people, being 3 years behind in mental age seems changeable; with sufficient work and assistance, it feels like such a child should be able to catch up to his peers. On the other hand, having an IQ that’s 30 points below average sounds like the diagnosis of a permanent condition; such a person seems doomed to be “unintelligent” forever.
One other odd feature of both Binet’s mental age concept and Stern’s IQ was that they didn’t generalize very well to adult populations. For example, are 80- year olds twice as intelligent as 40-year-olds? After all, an 80-year-old who was as intelligent as an average 40-year-old would have an IQ of 50 (40/80 × 100 = 50); clearly, this doesn’t make sense. Similarly, imagine a 30-year-old with a mental age of 30; her IQ would be 100. But in 10 years, when she was 40, if her
mental age stayed at 30, she would have an IQ of only 75 (30/40 × 100 = 75).
Given that IQ scores remain constant after about age 16 (Eysenck, 1994), this would mean that adults get progressively less smart with every year that they age. Although children may sometimes think exactly this about their parents, their parents would clearly have a different opinion.
To adjust for this problem, psychologists began to use a different measure,
deviation IQ, for calculating the IQ of adults (Wechsler, 1939). The deviation IQ
is calculated by comparing the person’s test score with the average score for people of the same age. In order to calculate deviation IQs, one must first establish the norm, or average, for a population. To do so, psychologists administer tests to huge numbers of people and use these scores to estimate the average for people of different ages. These averages are then used as baselines against which to compare a person. Because “average” is defined to be 100, a deviation IQ of 100 means that the person is average, whereas an IQ of 115
would mean that the person’s IQ is above average (see Figure 9.1 ). One advantage of using deviation IQ scores is that it avoids the problem of IQ scores that consistently decline with age because scores are calculated relative to others of the same age.
Figure 9.1 The Normal Distribution of Scores for a Standardized Intelligence Test
The Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale
In an ironic twist, the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) , the most common intelligence test in use today for adolescents and adults, was developed by a man who himself had been labelled as “feeble minded” by intelligence tests after immigrating to the United States from Romania at the age of nine. David Wechsler originally developed the scale in 1955 and it is now in its fourth edition.
The WAIS provides a single IQ score for each test taker—the Full Scale IQ—but also breaks intelligence into a General Ability Index (GAI) and a Cognitive Proficiency Index (CPI), as shown in Figure 9.2 . The GAI is computed from scores on the Verbal Comprehension and Perceptual Reasoning indices. These measures tap into an individual’s intellectual abilities, but without placing much emphasis on how fast he can solve problems and make decisions. The CPI, in contrast, is based on the Working Memory and Processing Speed subtests. It is included in the Full Scale IQ category because greater working memory capacity and processing speed allow more cognitive resources to be devoted to
reasoning and solving problems. Figure 9.3 shows some sample test items from the WAIS.
Figure 9.2 Subscales of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale
Figure 9.3 Types of Problems Used to Measure Intelligence These hypothetical problems are consistent with the types seen on the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale.
Raven’s Progressive Matrices
Although the Stanford-Binet test and the WAIS have been widely used across North America, they have also been criticized by a number of researchers. One of the key problems with many intelligence tests, such as these, is that questions often are biased to favour people from the test developer’s culture or who primarily speak the test developer’s language. This cultural bias puts people from different cultures, social classes, educational levels, and primary languages, at an immediate disadvantage. Clearly, this is a problem, because a person’s “intelligence” should not be affected by whether they are fluent in English or familiar with Western culture. In response to this problem, psychologists have tried to develop “culture-free” tests.
In the 1930s, John Raven developed Raven’s Progressive Matrices , an intelligence test that is based on pictures, not words, thus making it relatively unaffected by language or cultural background. The main set of tasks found in Raven’s Progressive Matrices measure the extent to which test takers can see patterns in the shapes and colours within a matrix and then determine which
shape or colour would complete the pattern (see Figure 9.4 ).
Figure 9.4 Sample Problem from Raven’s Progressive Matrices Which possible pattern (1–8) should go in the blank space? Check your answer at the bottom of the page. Source: “Sample Problem from Raven’s Progressive Matrices,” NCS Pearson, 1998.
Answer to Figure 9.4 : Pattern 6.
Module 9.1a Quiz:
Different Approaches to Intelligence Testing
Know . . .
1. Galton developed anthropometrics as a means to measure intelligence based on .
A. creativity B. perceptual abilities C. physical size and body type D. brain convolution
Understand . . . 2. The deviation IQ is calculated by comparing an individual’s test score
A. at one point in time to that same person’s test score at a different point in time.
B. to that same person’s test score from a different IQ test; the “deviation” between the tests is a measure of whether either test is inaccurate.
C. to that same individual’s school grades. D. to the average score for other people who are the same age.
3. In an attempt to be culturally unbiased, Raven’s Progressive Matrices relies upon what types of questions?
A. Verbal analogies B. Spatial calculations C. Visual patterns D. Practical problems that are encountered in every culture
Apply . . . 4. If someone’s mental age is double her chronological age, what would her
IQ be?
A. 100 B. 50 C. 200 D. Cannot be determined with this information
The Checkered Past of Intelligence
Testing
IQ testing in North America got a significant boost during World War I. Lewis Terman, developer of the Stanford-Binet test, worked with the United States military to develop a set of intelligence tests that could be used to identify which military recruits had the potential to become officers and which should be streamed into non-officer roles. The intention was to make the officer selection process more objective, thereby increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of officer training programs. Following World War I, Terman argued for the use of intelligence tests in schools for similar purposes—identifying students who should be channelled into more “advanced” academic topics that would prepare them for higher education, and others who should be channelled into more skill- based topics that would prepare them for direct entry into the skilled trades and the general workforce. Armed with his purportedly objective IQ tests, he was a man on a mission to improve society. However, the way he went about doing so was rife with problems.
IQ Testing and the Eugenics Movement
In order to understand the logic of Terman and his followers, it is important to examine the larger societal context in which his theories were developed. The end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries was a remarkable time in human history. A few centuries of European colonialism had spread Western influence through much of the world. The Industrial Revolution, which was concentrated in the West, compounded this, making Western nations more powerful militarily, technologically, and economically. And in the sciences, Darwin’s paradigm-shattering work on the origin of species firmly established the
idea of evolution by natural selection (see Module 3.1 ), permanently transforming our scientific understanding of the living world.
Although an exciting time for the advancement of human knowledge, this confluence of events also had some very negative consequences, especially in terms of how colonialism affected non-Western cultures and people of non-White ethnicities. However, the stage was set for social “visionaries” to apply Darwin’s
ideas to human culture, and to explain the military–economic–technological dominance of Western cultures by assuming that Westerners (and especially White people) were genetically superior. This explanation served as a handy justification for the colonial powers’ imposition of Western-European values on other cultures; in fact, it was often viewed that the colonizers were actually doing other cultures a favour, helping to “civilize” them by assimilating them into a “superior” cultural system.
The social Darwinism that emerged gave rise to one of the uglier social movements of recent times—eugenics, which means “good genes” (Gillham, 2001). The history of eugenics is intimately intertwined with the history of intelligence testing. In fact, Francis Galton himself, a cousin of Charles Darwin,
coined the term eugenics, gaining credibility for his ideas after making an extensive study of the heritability of intelligence.
Many people viewed eugenics as a way to “improve” the human gene pool. Their definition of “improve” is certainly up for debate. American Philosophical Society
Galton noticed that many members of his own family were successful businessmen and some, like Charles Darwin, eminent scientists. He studied other families and concluded that eminence ran in families, which he believed
was due to “good breeding.” Although families share more than genes, such as wealth, privilege, and social status, Galton believed that genes were the basis of
the family patterns he observed (Fancher, 2009).
Galton’s views influenced Lewis Terman, who promoted an explicitly eugenic philosophy; he argued for the superiority of his own “race,” and in the interest of “improving” society, believed that his IQ tests provided a strong empirical justification for eugenic practices. One such practice was the forced sterilization of people like Leilani Muir, whom we discussed at the beginning of this module.
Supporters of eugenics often noted that its logic was based on research and philosophy from many different fields. Doing so put the focus on the abstract intellectual characteristics of eugenics rather than on some of its disturbing, real- world implications. American Philosophical Society
As Terman administered his tests to more people, it seemed like his race-based beliefs were verified by his data. Simply put, people from other cultures and other apparent ethnic backgrounds, didn’t score as highly on his tests as did White people from the West (i.e., the U.S., Canada, and Western Europe, for the most
part). For example, 40% of new immigrants to Canada and the United States
scored so low they were classified as “feebleminded” (Kevles, 1985). As a result, Terman concluded that people from non-Western cultures and non-White ethnicities generally had lower IQs, and he therefore argued that it was appropriate (even desirable) to stream them into less challenging academic pursuits and jobs of lower status. For example, he wrote, “High-grade or border- line deficiency . . . is very, very common among Spanish-Indian and Mexican families of the Southwest and also among negroes. Their dullness seems to be racial, or at least inherent in the family stocks from which they come. . . . Children of this group should be segregated into separate classes. . . . They cannot master abstractions but they can often be made into efficient workers . . . from a eugenic point of view they constitute a grave problem because of their
unusually prolific breeding” (Terman, 1916, pp. 91–92).
Such ideas gained enough popularity that forced sterilization was carried out in at least 30 states and two Canadian provinces, lasting for almost half a century.
In Alberta, the Sexual Sterilization Act remained in force until 1972, by which time more than 2800 people had undergone sterilization procedures in that province alone. And as you might have guessed, new immigrants, the poor, Native people, and Black people were sterilized far more often than middle and upper class White people.
The Race and IQ Controversy
One of the reasons intelligence tests played so well into the agendas of eugenicists is that, from Terman onwards, researchers over the last century have consistently found differences in the IQ scores of people from different ethnic groups. Before we go any further, we want to acknowledge that this is a difficult, and potentially upsetting, set of research findings. However, it’s important to take a close look at this research, and to understand the controversy that surrounds it, because these findings are well known in the world of intelligence testing and could be easily misused by those who are motivated by prejudiced views. As you will see, when you take a close look at the science, the story is not nearly as clear as it may appear at first glance.
The root of this issue about “race and IQ” is that there is a clear and reliable hierarchy of IQ scores across different ethnic groups. This was first discovered in the early 1900s, and by the 1920s, the United States passed legislation making it standard to administer intelligence tests to new immigrants arriving at Ellis Island for entry into the country. The result was that overwhelming numbers of immigrants were officially classified as “morons” or “feebleminded.” Some psychologists suspected that these tests were unfair, and that the low scores of these minority groups might be due to language barriers and a lack of knowledge of American culture. Nevertheless, as intelligence tests were developed that were increasingly culturally sensitive—such as Raven’s Progressive Matrices— these differences persisted. Specifically, Asian people tended to score the highest, followed by Whites, followed by Latinos and Blacks; this has been found
in samples in several parts of the world, including Canada (Rushton & Jensen, 2005). Other researchers have found that Native people in Canada score lower as a group than Canadians with European ancestry (e.g., Beiser & Gotowiec, 2000).
The race–IQ research hit the general public in 1994 with the publication of The Bell Curve (Herrnstein & Murray, 1994), which became a bestseller. This book focused on over two decades of research that replicated the race differences in IQ that we mentioned earlier. Herrnstein and Murray also argued that human intelligence is a strong predictor of many different personal and social outcomes, such as workplace performance, income, and the likelihood of being involved in
criminal activities. Additionally, The Bell Curve argued that those of high intelligence were reproducing less than those of low intelligence, leading to a dangerous population trend in the United States. They believed that America was becoming an increasingly divided society, populated by a small class of “cognitive elite,” and a large underclass with lower intelligence. They argued that
a healthy society would be a meritocracy, in which people who had the most ability and worked the hardest would receive the most wealth, power, and status. Those who didn’t have what it took to rise to the top, such as those with low IQs, should be allowed to live out their fates, and should not therefore be helped by programs such as Head Start, affirmative action programs, or scholarships for members of visible minorities. Instead, the system should simply allow people with the most demonstrable merit to rise to the top, regardless of their cultural or
ethnic backgrounds. Although many people agree with the idea of a meritocracy in principle, a huge problem arises in implementing a meritocracy when the system is set up to systematically give certain groups advantages over other groups; in this situation, assessing true “merit” is far from straightforward.
As you can imagine, research on the race–IQ gap sparked bitter controversy. Within the academic world, some researchers have claimed that these findings
are valid (e.g., Gottfredson, 2005), whereas others have argued that these results are based on flawed methodologies and poor measurements (e.g.,
Lieberman, 2001; Nisbett, 2005). Others have sought to discredit Herrnstein and Murray’s conclusions, in particular their argument that the differences in IQ scores between ethnic groups means that there are inherent, genetic differences in intelligence between the groups. Within the general public, reaction was similarly mixed; however, this research does get used by some people to justify policies such as limiting immigration, discontinuing affirmative action programs, and otherwise working to overturn decades of progress made in the fight for civil rights and equality.
Problems with the Racial Superiority Interpretation
In many ways, the simplest critique of the racial superiority interpretation of these test score differences is that the tests themselves are culturally biased. This critique was lodged against intelligence tests from the time of Terman and, as we discussed earlier, a considerable amount of research focused on creating tests that were not biased due to language and culture. But in spite of all this work, the test score differences between ethnic groups remained.
A more subtle critique was that it wasn’t necessarily the tests that were biased, but the very process of testing itself. If people in minority groups are less familiar with standardized tests, if they are less motivated to do well on the tests, or if they are less able to focus on performing well during the testing sessions, they will be more likely to produce lower test scores. This indeed seems to be the case; researchers have found that cultural background affects many aspects of the testing process including how comfortable people are in a formal testing environment, how motivated they are to perform well on such tests, and their
ability to establish rapport with the test administrators (Anastasi & Urbina, 1996).
Research has also indicated that the IQ differences may be due to a process
known as stereotype threat , which occurs when negative stereotypes about a group cause group members to underperform on ability tests (Steele, 1997). In other words, if a Black person is reminded of the stereotype that Black people perform more poorly than White people on intelligence tests, she may end up scoring lower on that test as a result. Researchers have identified at least three reasons why this may happen. First, stereotype threat increases arousal due to the fact that individuals are aware of the negative stereotype about their group, and are concerned that a poor performance may reflect poorly on their group; this arousal then undermines their test performance. Second, stereotype threat causes people to become more self-focused, paying more attention to how well they are performing; this leaves fewer cognitive resources for them to focus on the test itself. Third, stereotype threat increases the tendency for people to actively try to inhibit negative thoughts they may have, which also reduces the
cognitive resources that could otherwise be used to focus on the test (Schmader et al., 2008). There have now been more than 200 studies on stereotype threat (Nisbett et al., 2012), establishing it as a reliable phenomenon that regularly suppresses the test scores of members of stereotyped groups.
These concerns cast doubt on the validity of IQ scores for members of non- White ethnic and cultural groups, suggesting that differences in test scores do not necessarily reflect differences in the underlying ability being tested (i.e., intelligence), but instead may reflect other factors, such as such as linguistic or cultural bias in the testing situation.
Another important critique has been lodged against the race–IQ research, arguing that even if one believes that the tests are valid and that there are intelligence differences between groups in society, these may not be the result of innate, genetic differences between the groups. For example, consider the circumstances that poor people and ethnic minorities face in countries like Canada or the United States. People from such groups tend to experience a host of factors that contribute to poorer cognitive and neurological development, such
as poorer nutrition, greater stress, lower-quality schools, higher rates of illness
(Acevedo-Garcia et al., 2008) with reduced access to medical treatment, and greater exposure to toxins such as lead (Dilworth-Bart & Moore, 2006).
One additional, subtle factor that may interfere with the test performances of people from disadvantaged groups is that the life experiences of people in those groups may encourage them to adopt certain beliefs about themselves, which then interfere with their motivations to perform their best. For example, if early experiences in educational settings lead people to believe that they are not intelligent, and that this is a fixed quality, they will tend to believe that there is little they can do to change their own intelligence, and as a result, they won’t try
very hard to do so. However, recent research suggests that it is possible to improve one’s intelligence—but one has to believe this in order to take the necessary steps to make it happen.
Working the Scientific Literacy Model Beliefs about Intelligence
Think of something you’re not very good at (or maybe have never even tried), like juggling knives, solving Sudoku puzzles, or speaking Gaelic. Most likely, you would expect that even if your initial attempts didn’t go well, with practice you could get better.
Now think about how smart you are. Do you think you could make yourself smarter? Do you ever say things like “I’m no good at math,” or “I just can’t do multiple choice tests?” Do you think about these abilities the same way that you think about knife- juggling?
Many people hold implicit beliefs that their intelligence level is relatively fixed and find it surprising that intelligence is, in fact, highly changeable. Ironically, this mistaken belief itself will tend to limit people’s potential to change their own intelligence. This is an
especially important issue for students, as children’s self- perceptions of their mental abilities have a very strong influence
on their academic performance (Greven et al., 2009).
What do we know about the kinds of beliefs that may affect test scores? Research into this phenomenon has helped to shed light on the frustrating mystery of why some people seem to consistently fall
short of reaching their potential. Carol Dweck (2002) has found that people seem to hold one of two theories about the nature of
intelligence. They may hold an entity theory : the belief that intelligence is a fixed characteristic and relatively difficult (or impossible) to change; or they may hold an incremental theory : the belief that intelligence can be shaped by experiences, practice, and effort. Whether one holds to an entity theory or incremental theory has powerful effects on one’s academic performance.
How can science test whether beliefs affect performance? In experiments by Dweck and her colleagues, students were identified as holding either entity theory or incremental theory beliefs. The students had the chance to answer 476 general knowledge questions dealing with topics such as history, literature, math, and geography. They received immediate feedback on whether their answers were correct or incorrect. Those who held entity beliefs were more likely to give up in the face of highly challenging problems, and they were likely to withdraw from situations that resulted in failure. These individuals seemed to believe that intelligence was something you either had, or you didn’t; thus, when encountering difficult problems or feelings of failure, they seemed to conclude “Well, I guess I don’t
have it,” and as a result, gave up trying (Mangels et al., 2006). As Homer Simpson has said, “Kids, you tried your best and you
failed miserably. The lesson is, never try” (Richdale & Kirkland, 1994). To the entity theorist, difficulty is a sign of inadequacy.
In comparison, people with incremental views of intelligence were
more resilient (Mangels et al., 2006), continuing to work hard even when faced with challenges and failures. After all, if intelligence and ability can change, then rather than getting discouraged by difficulties, one should keep working hard, improving one’s abilities.
Because resilience is such a desirable trait, Dweck and her colleagues tested a group of junior high students to see whether
incremental views could be taught (Blackwell et al., 2007). In a randomized, controlled experiment, they taught one group of Grade 7 students incremental theory—that they could control and change their abilities. This group’s grades increased over the school year, whereas the control group’s grades actually declined
(Figure 9.5 ).
Figure 9.5 Personal Beliefs Influence Grades
Students who held incremental views of intelligence (i.e., the belief that intelligence can change with effort) show improved grades in math compared to students who believed that
intelligence was an unchanging entity (Blackwell et al., 2007). Source: From Implicit theories of intelligence predict achievement across an Adult Transition: A
Longitudinal Study and an intervention.” Child Development, Vol 78, No 1, Pg 246-263 byLisa S.
Blackwell, Kali H. Trzesniewski, Carol Sorich Dweck. Copyright © 2007 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Reproduced by permission of John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
The moral of the story? If you think you can, you might; but if you think you can’t, you won’t.
Can we critically evaluate this research? These findings suggest that it is desirable to help people adopt incremental beliefs about their abilities. However, is this always for the best? What if, in some situations, it is true that no matter how hard a person tries, he or she is unlikely to succeed, and continuing to try at all costs may be detrimental to the person’s well-being, or may close the door on other opportunities that may have turned out better? At what point do we encourage people to be more “realistic” and to accept their limitations? So far, these remain unanswered questions in this literature.
An additional difficulty surrounding these studies is that it is not fully clear what mechanisms might be causing the improvements. Does the incremental view of intelligence lead to increased attention, effort, and time invested in studying? Does it lead to less-critical self-judgments following failure experiences? Or, does it have a positive effect on mood, which has been shown to
improve performance on tests of perception and creativity (Isen et al., 1987)? In order to better understand why these mindsets work the way they do, and perhaps, how to apply them more effectively, a great deal of research is needed to determine which mechanisms are operating in which circumstances. However, regardless of the mechanism(s) involved, the fact that it is possible to help students by changing their view of intelligence could be a powerful force for educational change in the future.
Why is this relevant?
This research has huge potential to be applied in schools and to become a part of standard parenting practice. Teaching people to adopt the view that intelligence and other abilities are trainable skills should give them a greater feeling of control over their lives, strengthen their motivations, enhance their resilience to difficulty, and improve their goal-striving success. Carol Dweck and Lisa Sorich Blackwell have designed a program called Brainology to teach students from elementary through high school that the brain can be trained and strengthened through practice. They hope that programs such as this can counteract the disempowering effects of stereotypes by helping members of stereotyped groups to have greater resilience and to avoid succumbing to negative beliefs about themselves. Not only is intelligence changeable, as this research shows, but perhaps society itself can be changed through the widespread application of this research.
Module 9.1b Quiz:
The Checkered Past of Intelligence Testing
Know . . . 1. People who believe that intelligence is relatively fixed are said to
advocate a(n) theory of intelligence. A. incremental B. entity C. sexist D. hereditary
2. When people are aware of stereotypes about their social group, and their social group membership is brought to their minds, they may experience a reduction in their performance on a stereotype-relevant task. This is
known as . A. incremental intelligence B. hereditary intelligence C. stereotype threat D. intelligence discrimination
3. Eugenics was a movement that promoted A. the use of genetic engineering technologies to improve the
human gene pool.
B. the assimilation of one culture into another, often as part of colonialism.
C. using measures of physical capabilities (e.g., visual acuity) as estimates of a person’s intelligence.
D. preventing people from reproducing if they were deemed to be genetically inferior, so as to improve the human gene pool.
Apply . . . 4. As a major exam approaches, a teacher who is hoping to reduce
stereotype threat and promote an incremental theory of intelligence would most likely
A. remind test takers that males tend to do poorly on the problems. B. remind students that they inherited their IQ from their parents. C. cite research of a recent study showing that a particular gene is
linked to IQ.
D. let students know that hard work is the best way to prepare for the exam.
Analyze . . . 5. According to the discussion of the race and IQ controversy
A. there are clear IQ differences between people of different ethnicities, and these probably have a genetic basis.
B. the use of Raven’s Progressive Matrices has shown that there are in fact no differences in IQ between the “races”; any such group differences must be due to cultural biases built into the tests.
C. many scholars believe that the ethnic differences in IQ are so large that one could argue that a person’s race should be considered a relevant factor in important decisions, such as who to let into medical school or who to hire for a specific job.
D. even if tests are constructed that are culturally unbiased, the testing process itself may still favour some cultures over others.
Module 9.1 Summary
anthropometrics
deviation IQ
entity theory
incremental theory
intelligence
intelligence quotient (IQ)
mental age
Raven’s Progressive Matrices
Stanford-Binet test
stereotype threat
Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS)
The eugenicists believed that abilities like intelligence were inborn, and thus, by encouraging reproduction between people with higher IQs, and reducing the birthrate of people with lower IQs, the gene pool of humankind could be
9.1a Know . . . the key terminology associated with intelligence and intelligence testing.
9.1b Understand . . . the reasoning behind the eugenics movements and its use of intelligence tests.
improved.
One of the key reasons that people stop trying to succeed in school, and then eventually drop out, is that they hold a belief that their basic abilities, such as their intelligence, are fixed. Not trying then guarantees that they perform poorly, which reinforces their tendency to not try. However, this downward spiral can be stopped by training young people to think of themselves as changeable. Specifically, learning to think that the brain is like a muscle that can be strengthened through exercise leads people to improve their scores on intelligence tests, helps them become more resilient to negative circumstances, and enables them to respond to life’s challenges more effectively.
There are many reasons why the process of intelligence testing may be systematically biased, resulting in inaccuracies when testing people from certain cultural groups: Tests may contain content that is more relevant or familiar to some cultures; the method of testing (e.g., paper- and-pencil multiple-choice questions) may be more familiar to people from some cultures; the environment of testing may make people from some cultures less comfortable; the presence of negative stereotypes about one’s group may interfere with test-taking abilities; and the internalization of self-defeating beliefs may affect performance.
9.1c Apply . . . the concepts of entity theory and incremental theory to help kids succeed in school.
9.1d Analyze . . . why it is difficult to remove all cultural bias from intelligence testing.
Module 9.2 Understanding Intelligence
Lane V. Erickson/Shutterstock
Learning Objectives
Know . . . the key terminology related to understanding intelligence. Understand . . . why intelligence is divided into fluid and crystallized types. Understand . . . intelligence differences between males and females.
9.2a 9.2b
9.2c
Blind Tom was born into a Black slave family in 1849. When his mother was bought in a slave auction by General James Bethune, Tom was included in the sale for nothing because he was blind and believed to be useless. Indeed, Tom was not “smart” in the normal sense of the term. Even as an adult he could speak fewer than 100 words and would never be able to go to school. But he could play more than 7000 pieces on the piano, including a huge classical music repertoire and many of his own compositions. Tom could play, flawlessly, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Bach, Chopin, Verdi, Rossini, and many others, even after hearing a piece only a single time. As an 11-year-old, he played at the White House, and by 16 went on a world tour. A panel of expert musicians performed a series of musical experiments on him, and universally agreed he was “among the most wonderful phenomena in musical history.” Despite his dramatic linguistic limitations, he could reproduce, perfectly, up to a 15-minute conversation without losing a single syllable, and could do so in English, French, or German, without understanding any part of what he was saying. In the mid-1800s, he was considered to be the “eighth wonder of the world.”
Today, Tom would be considered a savant , an individual with low mental capacity in most domains but extraordinary abilities in other specific areas such as music, mathematics, or art. The existence of savants complicates our discussion of intelligence considerably. Normally, the label “intelligent” or “unintelligent” is taken to indicate some sort of overall ability, the amount of raw brainpower available to the person, akin to an engine’s horsepower. But this doesn’t map onto savants at all—they have seemingly unlimited “horsepower” for certain skills and virtually none for many others. The existence of savants, and the more general phenomenon of people being good at some things (e.g., math, science) but not others (e.g., languages, art), challenges our
Apply . . . your knowledge to identify examples from the triarchic theory of intelligence. Analyze . . . whether teachers should spend time tailoring lessons to each individual student’s learning style.
9.2d
9.2e
understanding of intelligence and makes us ask more deeply, what is intelligence? Is it one ability? Or is it many?
Focus Questions
1. Is intelligence one ability or many? 2. How have psychologists attempted to measure intelligence?
When we draw conclusions about someone’s intelligence (e.g., Sally is really smart!), we intuitively know what we mean. Right? Being intelligent has to do with a person’s abilities to think, understand, reason, learn, and find solutions to problems. But this intuitive understanding unravels quickly when you start considering the questions it raises. Are these abilities related to each other? Does the content of a person’s intelligence matter? That is, does it mean the same thing if a person is very good at different things, like math, music, history, poetry, and child rearing? Or should intelligence be thought of more as a person’s abilities on these specific types of tasks? Perhaps that would mean that there isn’t any such thing as “intelligence” per se, but rather a whole host of narrower “intelligences.” As you will learn in this module, a full picture of intelligence involves considering a variety of different perspectives.
Intelligence as a Single, General Ability
When we say someone is intelligent, we usually are implying they have a high level of generalized cognitive ability. We expect intelligent people to be “intelligent” in many different ways, about many different topics. We wouldn’t normally call someone intelligent if she were good at, say, making up limericks, but nothing else. Intelligence should manifest itself in many different domains.
Scientific evidence for intelligence as a general ability dates back to early 20th- century work by Charles Spearman, who began by developing techniques to
calculate correlations among multiple measures of mental abilities (Spearman, 1923). One of these techniques, known as factor analysis , is a statistical technique that examines correlations between variables to find clusters of related variables, or “factors.” For example, imagine that scores on tests of vocabulary, reading comprehension, and verbal reasoning correlate highly together; these would form a “language ability” factor. Similarly, imagine that scores on algebra, geometry, and calculus questions correlate highly together; these would form a “math ability” factor. However, if the language variables don’t correlate very well with the math variables, then you have some confidence that these are separate factors; in this case, it would imply that there are at least two types of independent abilities: math and language abilities. For there to be an overarching general ability called “intelligence,” one would expect that tests of different types of abilities would all correlate with each other, forming only one factor.
Spearman’s General Intelligence
Spearman found that schoolchildren’s grades in different school subjects were positively correlated, even though the content of the different topics (e.g., math vs. history) was very different. This led Spearman to hypothesize the existence
of a general intelligence factor (abbreviated as “g”). Spearman believed that g represented a person’s “mental energy,” reflecting his belief that some people’s brains are simply more “powerful” than others (Sternberg, 2003). This has greatly influenced psychologists up to the present day, cementing within the field
the notion that intelligence is a basic cognitive trait comprising the ability to learn, reason, and solve problems, regardless of their nature; common intelligence
tests in use today calculate g as an “overall” measure of intelligence (Johnson et al., 2008).
But is g real? Does it predict anything meaningful? In fact, g does predict many important phenomena. For example, g correlates quite highly with high school and university grades (Neisser et al., 1996), how many years a person will stay in school, and how much they will earn afterwards (Ceci & Williams, 1997).
General intelligence scores also predict many seemingly unrelated phenomena,
such as how long people are likely to live (Gottfredson & Deary, 2004), how
quickly they can make snap judgments on perceptual discrimination tasks (i.e.,
laboratory tasks that test how quickly people form perceptions; Deary & Stough, 1996), and how well people can exert self-control (Shamosh et al., 2008). Some other examples of g’s influences are depicted in Figure 9.6 .
Figure 9.6 General Intelligence Is Related to Many Different Life Outcomes General intelligence (g) predicts not just intellectual ability, but also psychological well-being, income, and successful long-term relationships. Source: Based on “General Intelligence is related to Various Outcomes” Adapted from Herrnstein, R., & Murray, C. (1994).
The bell curve: Intelligence and class structure in American life. New York: Free Press.; Gottfredson, L. (1997). Why g
matters : Complexity of everyday life. Intelligence, 24, 79–132.
In the workplace, intelligence test scores not only predict who gets hired, but also how well people perform at a wide variety of jobs. In fact, the correlation is so
strong that after almost a century of research (Schmidt & Hunter, 1998), general mental ability has emerged as the single best predictor of job
performance (correlation = .53; Hunter & Hunter, 1984). Overall intelligence is a far better predictor than the applicant’s level of education (correlation = .10) or how well the applicant does in the job interview itself (correlation = .14). It is amazing to think that in order to make a good hiring decision, a manager would be better off using a single number given by an IQ test than actually sitting down and interviewing applicants face to face!
The usefulness of g is also shown by modern neuroscience research findings that overall intelligence predicts how well our brains work. For example, Tony Vernon at Western University and his colleagues have found that general intelligence test scores predict how efficiently we conduct impulses along nerve
fibres and across synapses (Johnson et al., 2005; Reed et al., 2004). This
efficiency of nerve conduction allows for more efficient information processing overall. As a result, when working on a task, the brains of highly intelligent people don’t have to work as hard as those of less intelligent people; high IQ
brains show less overall brain activation than others for the same task (Grabner et al., 2003; Haier et al., 1992).
Thus, overall intelligence, as indicated by g, is related to many real-world phenomena, from how well we do at work to how well our brains function.
Does g Tell us the Whole Story?
Clearly, g reflects something real. However, we have to remember that correlation does not equal causation. It is possible that the effects of g are due to motivation, self-confidence, or other variables. For example, one would expect that being motivated to succeed, as well as being highly self-confident, could lead to better grades, better IQ scores, and better job performance. Therefore, it is important to be cautious when interpreting these results.
We should also ask whether g can explain everything about a person’s intelligence. For example, how could a single number possibly capture the kinds of genius exhibited by savants like Blind Tom, who are exceptionally talented in some domains but then severely impaired in others? It is easy to find other examples in your own experience; surely, you have known people who were very talented in art or music but terrible in math or science? Or perhaps you have known an incredibly smart person who was socially awkward, or a charismatic and charming person whom you’d never want as your chemistry partner? There may be many ways of being intelligent, and reducing such diversity to a single number seems to overlook the different types of intelligence that people have.
Module 9.2a Quiz:
Intelligence as a Single, General Ability
Know . . . 1. Spearman believed that
A. people have multiple types of intelligence. B. intelligence scores for math and history courses should not be
correlated.
C. statistics cannot help researchers understand how different types of intelligence are related to each other.
D. some people’s brains are more “powerful” than others, thus giving them more “mental energy.”
Understand . . . 2. What is factor analysis?
A. A method of ranking individuals by their intelligence B. A statistical procedure that is used to identify which sets of
psychological measures are highly correlated with each other
C. The technique of choice for testing for a single, general intelligence
D. The technique for testing the difference between two means
3. Researchers who argue that g is a valid way of understanding intelligence would NOT point to research showing
A. people with high g make perceptual judgments more quickly. B. people with high g are more likely to succeed at their jobs. C. the brains of people with low g conduct impulses more slowly. D. people with low g are better able to do some tasks than people
with high g.
Intelligence as Multiple, Specific Abilities
Spearman himself believed that g didn’t fully capture intelligence because his own analyses showed that although different items on an intelligence test were correlated with each other, their correlations were never 1.0, and usually far less
than that. Thus, g cannot be the whole story; there must, at the very least, be other factors that account for the variability in how well people respond to different questions.
One possible explanation is that in addition to a generalized intelligence, people also possess a number of specific skills. Individual differences on these skills may explain some of the variability on intelligence tests that is not accounted for
by g. In a flurry of creativity, Spearman chose the inspired name “s” to represent this specific-level, skill-based intelligence. His two-factor theory of intelligence
was therefore comprised of g and s, where g represents one’s general, overarching intelligence, and s represents one’s skill or ability level for a given task.
Nobody has seriously questioned the s part of Spearman’s theory; obviously, each task in life, from opening a coconut, to solving calculus problems, requires
abilities that are specific to the task. However, the concept of g has come under heavy fire throughout the intervening decades, leading to several different
theories of multiple intelligences.
The first influential theory of multiple intelligences was created by Louis Thurstone, who examined scores of general intelligence tests using factor
analysis, and found seven different clusters of what he termed primary mental abilities. Thurstone’s seven factors were word fluency (the person’s ability to produce language fluently), verbal comprehension, numeric abilities, spatial
visualization, memory, perceptual speed, and reasoning (Thurstone, 1938). He argued that there was no meaningful g, but that intelligence needed to be understood at the level of these primary mental abilities that functioned
independently of each other. However, Spearman (1939) fired back, arguing that Thurstone’s seven primary mental abilities were in fact correlated with each other, suggesting that there was after all an overarching general intelligence.
A highly technical and statistical debate raged for several more decades
between proponents of g and proponents of multiple intelligences, until it was eventually decided that both of them were right.
The Hierarchical Model of Intelligence
The controversy was largely settled by the widespread adoption of hierarchical
models that describe how some types of intelligence are “nested” within others in a similar manner to how, for example, a person is nested within her community, which may be nested within a city. The general hierarchical model describes how
our lowest-level abilities (those relevant to a particular task, like Spearman’s s) are nested within a middle level that roughly corresponds to Thurstone’s primary mental abilities (although not necessarily the specific ones that Thurstone
hypothesized), and these are nested within a general intelligence (Spearman’s g; Gustaffson, 1988). By the mid-1990s, analyses of prior research on intelligence concluded that almost all intelligence studies were best explained by a three-
level hierarchy (Carroll, 1993).
What this means is that we have an overarching general intelligence, which is made up of a small number of sub-abilities, each of which is made up of a large number of specific abilities that apply to individual tasks. However, even this didn’t completely settle the debate about what intelligence really is, because it left open a great deal of room for different theories of the best way to describe the middle-level factors. And as you will see in the next section, even the debate
about g has been updated in recent years.
Working the Scientific Literacy Model
Testing for Fluid and Crystallized Intelligence
The concept of g implies that performance on all aspects of an intelligence test is influenced by this central ability. But careful analyses of many data sets, and recent neurobiological evidence,
have shown that there may be two types of g that have come to be called fluid intelligence (Gf) and crystallized intelligence (Gc).
What do we know about fluid and crystallized intelligence? The distinction between fluid and crystallized intelligence is basically the difference between “figuring things out” and
“knowing what to do from past experience.” Fluid intelligence (Gf) is a type of intelligence used in learning new information
and solving new problems not based on knowledge the person already possesses. Tests of Gf involve problems such as pattern recognition and solving geometric puzzles, neither of which is heavily dependent on past experience. For example, Raven’s Progressive Matrices, in which a person is asked to complete a series of geometric patterns of increasing complexity (see Module 9.1 ), is the most widely used measure of Gf. In contrast, crystallized intelligence (Gc) is a type of intelligence that draws upon past learning and experience. Tests of Gc, such as tests of vocabulary and general knowledge, depend heavily on individuals’ prior knowledge to come up with
the correct answers (Figure 9.7 ; Cattell, 1971).
Figure 9.7 Fluid and Crystallized Intelligence
Fluid intelligence is dynamic and changing, and may eventually become crystallized into a more permanent form. AVAVA/Shutterstock
Gf and Gc are thought to be largely separate from each other, with two important exceptions. One is that having greater fluid intelligence means that the person is better able to process information and to learn; therefore, greater Gf may, over time, lead to greater Gc, as the person who processes more
information will gain more crystallized knowledge (Horn & Cattell, 1967). Note, however, that this compelling hypothesis has received little empirical support thus far (Nisbett et al., 2012). The second is that it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to measure Gf without tapping into people’s pre-existing knowledge and experience, as we discuss below.
How can science help distinguish between fluid and crystallized intelligence? One interesting line of research that supports the Gf/Gc distinction comes from examining how each type changes over
the lifespan (Cattell, 1971; Horn & Cattell, 1967). In one study, people aged 20 to 89 years were given a wide array of tasks,
including the Block Design task (see Figure 9.3 ), the Tower of London puzzle (see Figure 9.8 ), and tests of reaction time. Researchers have found that performance in Gf-tasks declines after a certain age, which some research estimates as middle
adulthood (Bugg et al., 2006), whereas other studies place the beginning of the decline as early as the end of adolescence
(Avolio & Waldman, 1994; Baltes & Lindenberger, 1997). Measures of Gc (see Figure 9.9 ), by comparison, show greater stability as a person ages (Schaie, 1994). Healthy, older adults generally do not show much decline, if any, in their crystallized knowledge, at least until they reach their elderly years
(Miller et al., 2009).
Figure 9.8 Measuring Fluid Intelligence
The Tower of London problem has several versions, each of which requires the test taker to plan and keep track of rules. For example, the task might involve moving the coloured beads from the initial position so that they match any of the various end goal positions. Source: Shallice, T. (1982). Specific impairments of planning. Philosophical Transcripts of the Royal
Society of London, B 298, 199–209. “Measuring Fluid Intelligence.” Copyright © 1982 by The Royal
Society. Reprinted by permission of The Royal Society.
Figure 9.9 Measuring Crystallized Intelligence
Crystallized intelligence refers to facts, such as names of countries.
Neurobiological evidence further backs this up. The functioning of brain regions associated with Gf tasks declines sooner than the
functioning of those regions supporting Gc tasks (Geake & Hansen, 2010). For example, the decline of Gf with age is associated with reduced efficiency in the prefrontal cortex
(Braver & Barch, 2002), a key brain region involved in the cognitive abilities that underlie fluid intelligence (as discussed below). In contrast, this brain region does not play a central role in crystallized intelligence, which is more dependent on long-term memory systems that involve a number of different regions of the cortex.
Can we critically evaluate crystallized and fluid intelligence? There are certainly questions we can ask about crystallized and fluid intelligence. For one, is there really any such thing as fluid intelligence, or does it merely break down into specific sub- abilities?
Cognitive psychologists generally accept that fluid intelligence is a blending of several different cognitive abilities. For example, the abilities to switch attention from one stimulus to another, inhibit distracting information from interfering with concentration, sustain attention on something at will, and keep multiple pieces of information in working memory at the same time, are all part of
fluid intelligence (Blair, 2006). If Gf is simply a statistical creation that reflects the integration of these different processes, perhaps researchers would be better off focusing their attention on these systems, rather than the more abstract construct Gf.
Another critique is that fluid and crystallized intelligence are not, after all, entirely separable. Consider the fact that crystallized intelligence involves not only possessing knowledge, but also being able to access that knowledge when it’s needed. Fluid cognitive processes, and the brain areas that support them such as the prefrontal cortex, play important roles in both storing and retrieving crystallized knowledge from long-term memory
(Ranganath et al., 2003).
Similarly, tests of fluid intelligence likely also draw upon crystallized knowledge. For example, complete-the-pattern tasks
such as Raven’s Progressive Matrices may predominantly reflect fluid intelligence, but people who have never seen any type of similar task or had any practice with such an exercise will likely struggle with them more than someone with prior exposure to similar tasks. Imagine learning a new card game—you would have to rely on your fluid intelligence to help you learn the rules, figure out effective strategies, and outsmart your opponents. However, your overall knowledge of cards, games, and strategies will help you, especially if you compare yourself to a person who has played no such games in his life.
Why is this relevant? Recognizing the distinctiveness of Gf and Gc can help to reduce stereotypes and expectations about intelligence in older persons, reminding people that although certain kinds of intelligence may decline with age, other types that rely on accumulated knowledge
and wisdom may even increase as we get older (Kaufman, 2001). Also, research on fluid intelligence has helped psychologists to develop a much more detailed understanding of the full complement of cognitive processes that make up intelligence, and to devise tests that measure these processes more precisely.
Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory of Intelligence
Other influential models of intelligence have been proposed in attempts to move
beyond g. For example, Robert Sternberg (1983, 1988) developed the triarchic theory of intelligence , a theory that divides intelligence into three distinct types: analytical, practical, and creative (see Figure 9.10 ). These components can be described in the following ways:
Analytical intelligence is “book smarts.” It’s the ability to reason logically
through a problem and to find solutions. It also reflects the kinds of abilities
that are largely tested on standard intelligence tests that measure g. Most intelligence tests predominantly measure analytical intelligence, while generally ignoring the other types.
Practical intelligence is “street smarts.” It’s the ability to find solutions to real-world problems that are encountered in daily life, especially those that involve other people. Practical intelligence is what helps people adjust to new environments, learn how to get things done, and accomplish their goals. Practical intelligence is believed to have a great deal to do with one’s job performance and success.
Creative intelligence is the ability to generate new ideas and novel solutions to problems. Obviously, artists must have some level of creative intelligence, because they are, by definition, trying to create things that are new. It also takes creative intelligence to be a scientist because creative thinking is often required to conceive of good scientific hypotheses and develop ways of
testing them (Sternberg et al., 2001).
Figure 9.10 The Triarchic Theory of Intelligence According to psychologist Robert Sternberg, intelligence comprises three overlapping yet distinct components. Source: Lilienfeld, Scott O.; Lynn, Steven J; Namy, Laura L.; Woolf, Nancy J., Psychology: From Inquiry To Understanding,
Books A La Carte Edition, 2nd Ed., ©2011. Reprinted and Electronically reproduced by permission of Pearson Education,
Inc., New York, NY.
Myths in Mind Learning Styles One of the biggest arenas in which people have applied the idea that there are multiple types of intelligence is the widespread belief in educational settings that different people process information better through specific modalities, such as sight, hearing, and bodily movement. If this is true, then it suggests that people have different learning styles (e.g., people may be visual learners, auditory learners, tactile learners, etc.), and therefore, educators would be more effective if they tailor their lesson plans to the learning styles of their students, or at least ensure that they appeal to a variety of learning styles.
However, finding evidence to support this has proven difficult. In fact, dozens of studies have failed to show any benefit for tailoring information
to an individual’s apparent learning style (Pasher et al., 2008). This result probably reflects the fact that regardless of how you encounter information—through reading, watching, listening, or moving around— retaining it over the long term largely depends on how deeply you
process and store the meaning of the information (Willingham, 2004), which in turn is related to how motivated students are to learn. As a result, rather than trying to match the way that information is presented to the presumed learning styles of students, it is likely far more important for teachers to be able to engage students in ways they find interesting, meaningful, fun, personally relevant, and experientially engaging.
Sternberg believed that both practical and creative intelligences are better than analytical intelligence at predicting real-world outcomes, such as job success
(Sternberg et al., 1995). However, some psychologists have criticized Sternberg’s studies of job performance, arguing that the test items that were supposed to measure practical intelligence were merely measuring job-related
knowledge (Schmidt & Hunter, 1993). Other psychologists have questioned whether creative intelligence, one of the key components of Sternberg’s theory, actually involves “intelligence” per se, or is instead measuring the tendency to
think in ways that challenge norms and conventions (Gottfredson, 2003; Jensen, 1993). These critiques show us how challenging it can be to define intelligence, and to predict how intelligence—or intelligences—will influence real- world behaviours.
Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences
Howard Gardner proposed an especially elaborate theory of multiple intelligences. Gardner was inspired by specific cases, such as people who were savants (discussed in the introduction to this module), who had extraordinary
abilities in limited domains, very poor abilities in many others, and low g. Gardner also was influenced by cases of people with brain damage, which indicated that some specific abilities could be dramatically affected while others remained
intact (Gardner, 1983, 1999). He also noted that “normal people” (presumably, those of us who are not savants and also don’t have brain damage) differ widely in their abilities and talents, having a knack for some things but hopeless at others, which doesn’t fit the notion that intelligence is a single, overarching ability.
Based on his observations, Gardner proposed a theory of multiple intelligences , a model claiming that there are seven (now updated to at least nine) different forms of intelligence, each independent from the others (see Table 9.1 ). As intuitively appealing as this is, critics have pointed out that few of Gardner’s intelligences can be accurately and reliably measured, making his theory unfalsifiable and difficult to research. For example, how would you reliably measure “existential intelligence” or “bodily/kinesthetic intelligence”? You cannot simply ask people how existential they are, or how well they are able to attune to their bodies, relative to other people. Creating operational definitions of these concepts has proven to be a difficult challenge, and has held back empirical work on Gardner’s theory. This is not a critique against Gardner specifically, but rather, highlights the need for researchers to develop better ways of measuring
intelligence (Tirri & Nokelainen, 2008).
Table 9.1 Gardner’s Proposed Forms of Intelligence Source: Based on The Nine Types of Intelligence By Howard Gardner.
Verbal/linguistic
intelligence
The ability to read, write, and speak effectively
Logical/mathematical
intelligence
The ability to think with numbers and use abstract thought; the
ability to use logic or mathematical operations to solve
problems
Visuospatial
intelligence
The ability to create mental pictures, manipulate them in the
imagination, and use them to solve problems
Bodily/kinesthetic
intelligence
The ability to control body movements, to balance, and to
sense how one’s body is situated
Musical/rhythmical
intelligence
The ability to produce and comprehend tonal and rhythmic
patterns
Interpersonal
intelligence
The ability to detect another person’s emotional states,
motives, and thoughts
Self/intrapersonal
intelligence
Self-awareness; the ability to accurately judge one’s own
abilities, and identify one’s own emotions and motives
Naturalist
intelligence
The ability to recognize and identify processes in the natural
world—plants, animals, and so on
Existential
intelligence
The tendency and ability to ask questions about purpose in life
and the meaning of human existence
PSYCH @ The NFL Draft One rather interesting application of IQ has been to try to predict who will succeed in their careers. One test in particular, the Wonderlic Personnel Test, is widely used to predict career success in many different types of
jobs (Schmidt & Hunter, 1998; Schmidt et al., 1981). It has even become famous to National Football League (NFL) fans, because Wonderlic scores are one of many factors that influence which college players are drafted by NFL teams. This is no small thing—high draft picks receive multimillion dollar contracts. The logic behind using Wonderlic scores is that football is a highly complex game, involving learning and memorizing many complicated strategies, following all the rules, and being able to update strategies “on the fly.” Football is not only about being agile, fast, and strong; it might also involve intelligence.
But does the Wonderlic, a 50-item, 12-minute IQ test, actually predict NFL success, as the NFL has believed since the 1970s? According to research, the answer is “only sometimes,” but not the way you might think.
After studying 762 players from the 2002, 2003, and 2004 drafts and measuring their performance in multiple ways, researchers concluded that there was no significant correlation between Wonderlic scores and performance. What’s more, the performance of only two football positions, tight end and defensive back, showed any significant correlation with Wonderlic scores, and it was in a negative direction
(Lyons et al., 2009)! This means that lower intelligence scores predicted greater football success for these positions.
It seems that NFL teams would be well advised to throw out the Wonderlic test entirely, or perhaps only use it to screen for defensive backs and tight ends, and choose the lower-scoring players. No offence is intended whatsoever to football players, who may be extremely intelligent individuals, but in general, being highly intelligent does not seem to be an advantage in professional football. In the now immortalized words of former Washington Redskins quarterback Joe Thiesmann, “Nobody in the game of football should be called a genius. A genius is somebody like Norman Einstein.”
The Wonderlic Personnel Test is supposed to predict success in professional football, although it is not always very successful. This failure could be because of low validity. Ed Reinke/AP Images
Gardner’s theory has set off a firestorm of controversy in the more than 30 years since its initial proposal, gaining little traction in the academic literature, but being widely embraced in applied fields, such as education. While critics point to the lack of reliable ways of measuring Gardner’s different intelligences, proponents argue that there is more to a good theory than whether you can measure its
constructs. From the applied perspective, Gardner’s theory is useful. It helps teachers to create more diverse and engaging lesson plans to connect with and motivate students with different strengths. It helps people to see themselves as capable in different ways, rather than feeling limited by their IQ score, especially if it is not very high. And, it helps explain the wide range of human abilities and accomplishments far better than a mere IQ score.
From this perspective, perhaps the “psychometric supremacists” (Kornhaber, 2004), who insist that variables must be reliably quantifiable, might be missing the point. After all, even though IQ scores, for example, predict real-world outcomes like job status and income and offer a reliable means for identifying
students who qualify for extra educational attention (such as “gifted” students or students with learning issues), they help very little in understanding people’s strengths or weaknesses, and offer little to no guidance in actually helping people to improve their performance in different areas. Besides, IQ tests are almost exclusively based on highly unrealistic and limited testing situations, such as answering questions on paper-and-pencil tests while sitting in a room, whereas Gardner’s theory was formed out of real-world observations of the abilities of people with a wide range of accomplishments. Given that it is essentially impossible to objectively quantify many different types of abilities (e.g., being a good dancer, farmer, actor, comedian), it follows that you cannot judge a theory that purports to explain such abilities on the same grounds as theories about more easily quantifiable constructs.
The debate over Gardner’s theory lays bare a fundamental tension in the psychological sciences, which is that sometimes at least, the nuances of human behaviour cannot be easily measured, or perhaps even be measured at all. Should the observations and wisdom of teachers with decades of experience be discounted because scientists cannot develop quantifiable measures of certain constructs? However, if you accept the argument that “human experience” can trump psychometrically rigorous evidence, then where do you draw the line? Does this not throw into question the whole scientific basis of psychology itself?
We can’t resolve these questions for you here, but they remain excellent questions. The debate rages on.
Module 9.2b Quiz:
Intelligence as Multiple, Specific Abilities
Know . . . 1. Which of the following is not part of the triarchic theory of intelligence?
A. Practical intelligence B. Analytical intelligence C. Kinesthetic intelligence D. Creative intelligence
2. proposed that there are multiple forms of intelligence, each independent from the others.
A. Robert Sternberg B. Howard Gardner C. L. L. Thurstone D. Raymond Cattell
3. The ability to adapt to new situations and solve new problems reflects intelligence(s), whereas the ability to draw on one’s experiences and knowledge reflects intelligence(s).
A. fluid; crystallized B. crystallized; fluid C. general; multiple D. multiple; general
Analyze . . . 4. The hierarchical model of intelligence claims that
A. some types of intelligence are more powerful and desirable than others.
B. intelligence is broken down into two factors, a higher-level factor called g, and a lower-level factor called s.
C. scores on intelligence tests are affected by different levels of factors, ranging from lower-level factors such as physical health, to higher-level factors such as a person’s motivation for doing well on a test.
D. intelligence is comprised of three levels of factors, which are roughly similar to Spearman’s g, Thurstone’s primary mental abilities, and Spearman’s s.
The Battle of the Sexes
The distinction between g and multiple intelligences plays an important role in the oft-asked question, “Who is smarter, females or males?” Although earlier
studies showed some average intelligence differences between males and females, this has not been upheld by subsequent research and is likely the result of bias in the tests that favoured males over females. One of the most conclusive studies used 42 different tests of mental abilities to compare males and females
and found almost no differences in intelligence between the sexes (Johnson & Bouchard, 2007).
Some research has found that although males and females have the same average IQ score, there is much greater variability in male scores, which suggests that there are more men with substantial intellectual challenges, as well
as more men who are at the top of the brainpower heap (Deary et al., 2007; Dykiert et al., 2009). However, this may not be as simple as it appears. For example, one type of test that shows this male advantage at the upper levels of ability examines math skills on standardized tests. A few decades ago, about 12
times more males than females scored at the very top (Benbow & Stanley, 1983). This difference has decreased in recent years to 3–4 times as many males scoring at the top end of the spectrum. Not surprisingly, this change has occurred just as the number of math courses being taken by females—and the efforts made to increase female enrollment in such courses—has increased. So, the difference in results between the sexes is still there, but has been vastly
reduced by making math education more accessible for females (Wai et al., 2010).
The apparent advantage enjoyed by males may also be the result of an unintentional selection bias. More males than females drop out of secondary school; because these males would have lower IQs, on average, the result is that fewer low-IQ men attend university. Therefore, most of the samples of students used in psychology studies are skewed in that they under-represent men with low IQs. This biased sampling of males and females would make it
seem like men have higher fluid intelligence, when in reality they may not (Flynn & Rossi-Casé, 2011).
So, who is smarter, males or females? Neither. The best data seems to show that they are basically equal in overall intelligence.
Do Males and Females have Unique Cognitive
Skills?
Although the results discussed above suggest that males and females are equally intelligent, when multiple intelligences are considered, rather than overall IQ, a clear difference between the sexes does emerge. Females are, on average, better at verbal abilities, some memory tasks, and the ability to read people’s basic emotions, whereas males have the advantage on visuospatial
abilities, such as mentally rotating objects or aiming at objects (see Figure 9.11 ; Halpern & LaMay, 2000; Johnson & Bouchard, 2007; Tottenham et al., 2005; Weiss et al., 2003).
Figure 9.11 Mental Rotation and Verbal Fluency Tasks Some research indicates that, on average, males outperform females on mental rotation tasks (a), while females outperform men on verbal fluency (b).
This finding is frequently offered as an explanation for why males are more represented in fields like engineering, science, and mathematics. However, there are many other factors that could explain the under-representation of women in these disciplines, such as prevalent stereotypes that discourage girls from entering the maths and sciences, parents from supporting them in doing so, and
teachers from evaluating females’ work without bias.
Overlooking the many other factors that limit females’ participation in the maths and sciences is a dangerous thing to do. This was dramatically shown in 2005 when the President of Harvard University, Lawrence Summers, was removed from his position shortly after making a speech in which he argued that innate differences between the sexes may be responsible for under-representation of women in science and engineering. The outrage many expressed at his comments reflected the fact that many people realize that highlighting innate differences while minimizing or ignoring systemic factors only serves to perpetuate problems, not solve them.
Module 9.2c Quiz:
The Battle of the Sexes
Know . . . 1. Men tend to outperform women on tasks requiring , whereas
women outperform men on tasks requiring . A. spatial abilities; the ability to read people’s emotions B. practical intelligence; interpersonal intelligence C. memory; creativity D. logic; intuition
Analyze . . . 2. Research on gender differences in intelligence leads to the general
conclusion that
A. males are more intelligent than females. B. females are more intelligent than males. C. males and females are equal in overall intelligence. D. it has been impossible, thus far, to tell which gender is more
intelligent.
Module 9.2 Summary
crystallized intelligence (Gc)
factor analysis
fluid intelligence (Gf)
general intelligence factor (g)
multiple intelligences
savant
triarchic theory of intelligence
Mental abilities encompass both the amount of knowledge accumulated and the ability to solve new problems. This understanding is consistent not only with our common views of intelligence, but also with the results of decades of intelligence testing. Also, the observation that fluid intelligence can decline over the lifespan, even as crystallized intelligence remains constant, lends further support to the contention that they are different abilities.
Males and females generally show equal levels of overall intelligence, as measured by standard intelligence tests. However, men do outperform women on some tasks, particularly spatial tasks such as mentally rotating objects, whereas women outperform men on other tasks, such as perceiving emotions. Although there are some male–female differences in specific abilities, such as math, it is not yet clear whether these reflect innate differences between the sexes, or whether other factors are responsible, such as reduced enrollment of women in math classes and the presence of stereotype threat in testing
9.2a Know . . . the key terminology related to understanding intelligence.
9.2b Understand . . . why intelligence is divided into fluid and crystallized types.
9.2c Understand . . . intelligence differences between males and females.
sessions.
This theory proposes the existence of analytical, practical, and creative forms of intelligence.
Apply Activity Classify whether the individual in the following scenario is low, medium, or high in regard to each of the three aspects of intelligence.
Katrina is an excellent chemist. She has always performed well in school, so it is no
surprise that she earned her PhD from a prestigious institution. Despite her many
contributions and discoveries related to chemistry, however, she seems to fall short in
some domains. For example, Katrina does not know how to cook her own meals and if
anything breaks at her house, she has to rely on someone else to fix it.
Certainly, no one would want to discourage teachers from being attentive to the unique characteristics that each student brings to the classroom. However, large- scale reviews of research suggest that there is little basis for individualized teaching based on learning styles (e.g., auditory, visual, kinesthetic).
9.2d Apply . . . your knowledge to identify examples from the triarchic theory of intelligence.
9.2e Analyze . . . whether teachers should spend time tailoring lessons to each individual student’s learning style.
Module 9.3 Biological, Environmental, and Behavioural Influences on Intelligence
Miguel Medina/AFP/Newscom
Learning Objectives
Know . . . the key terminology related to heredity, environment, and intelligence. Understand . . . different approaches to studying the genetic basis of intelligence.
9.3a
9.3b
In 1955, the world lost one of the most brilliant scientists in history, Albert Einstein. Although you are probably familiar with his greatest scientific achievements, you may not know about what happened to him after he died—or more specifically, what happened to his brain.
Upon his death, a forward-thinking pathologist, Dr. Thomas Harvey, removed Einstein’s brain (his body was later cremated) so that it could be studied in the hope that medical scientists would eventually unlock the secret to his genius. Dr. Harvey took photographs of Einstein’s brain, and then it was sliced up into hundreds of tissue samples placed on microscope slides, and 240 larger blocks of brain matter, which were preserved in fluid. Surprisingly, Dr. Harvey concluded that the brain wasn’t at all remarkable, except for being smaller than average (1230 grams, compared to the average of 1300–1400 grams).
You might expect that Einstein’s brain was intensively studied by leading neurologists. But, instead, the brain mysteriously disappeared. Twenty- two years later, a journalist named Steven Levy tried to find Einstein’s brain. The search was fruitless until Levy tracked down Dr. Harvey in Wichita, Kansas, and interviewed him in his office. Dr. Harvey was initially reluctant to tell Levy anything about the brain, but eventually admitted that he still had it. In fact, he kept it right there in his office! Sheepishly, Dr. Harvey opened a box labelled “Costa Cider” and there, inside two large jars, floated the chunks of Einstein’s brain. Levy later wrote, “My eyes were fixed upon that jar as I tried to comprehend that these pieces of gunk bobbing up and down had caused a revolution in physics and quite possibly changed the course of civilization. Swirling in formaldehyde was the power of the smashed atom, the mystery of the universe’s black holes, the utter miracle of human achievement.”
Since that time, several research teams have discovered important
Apply . . . your knowledge of environmental and behavioural effects on intelligence to understand how to enhance your own cognitive abilities. Analyze . . . the belief that older children are more intelligent than their younger siblings.
9.3c
9.3d
abnormalities in Einstein’s brain. Einstein had a higher than normal ratio
of glial cells to neurons in the left parietal lobe (Diamond et al., 1985) and parts of the temporal lobes (Kigar et al., 1997), and a higher density of neurons in the right frontal lobe (Anderson & Harvey, 1996). Einstein’s parietal lobe has been shown to be about 15% larger than
average, and to contain an extra fold (Witelson et al., 1999). The frontal lobes contain extra convolutions (folds and creases) as well. These extra folds increase the surface area and neural connectivity in those areas.
How might these unique features have affected Einstein’s intelligence? The frontal lobes are heavily involved in abstract thought, and the parietal lobes are involved in spatial processing, which plays a substantial role in mathematics. Thus, these unique brain features may provide a key part of the neuroanatomical explanation for Einstein’s remarkable abilities in math and physics. Einstein not only had a unique mind, but a unique brain.
Focus Questions
1. Which biological and environmental factors have been found to be important contributors to intelligence?
2. Is it possible for people to enhance their own intelligence?
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be as smart as Einstein? Or even just smarter than you already are? Imagine if you could boost your IQ, upgrading your brain like you might upgrade a hard drive. You could learn more easily, think faster, and remember more. What benefits might you enjoy? Greater success? A cure for cancer? A Nobel Prize? At least you might not have to study as much to get good grades. As you will read in this module, there are in fact ways to improve your intelligence (although perhaps not to “Einsteinian” levels). However, to understand how these techniques can benefit us, we must also understand how our biology and our environment—”nature” and “nurture”—interact to influence intelligence.
Biological Influences on Intelligence
The story of Einstein’s brain shows us, once again, that our behaviours and abilities are linked to our biology. However, although scientists have been interested in these topics for over 100 years, we are only beginning to understand the complex processes that influence measures like IQ scores. In this section, we discuss the genetic and neural factors that influence intelligence, and how they may interact with our environment.
The Genetics of Intelligence: Twin and Adoption
Studies
The belief that intelligence is a capacity that we are born with has been widely held since the early studies of intelligence. However, early researchers lacked today’s sophisticated methods for studying genetic influences, so they had to rely upon their observations of whether intelligence ran in families, which it seemed
to do (see Module 9.1 ). Since those early days, many studies have been conducted to see just how large the genetic influence on intelligence may be.
Studies of twins and children who have been adopted have been key tools allowing researchers to begin estimating the genetic contribution to intelligence. Decades of such research have shown that genetic similarity does contribute to intelligence test scores. Several important findings from this line of study are
summarized in Figure 9.12 (Plomin & Spinath, 2004). The most obvious trend in the figure shows that as the degree of genetic relatedness increases,
similarity in IQ scores also increases. The last two bars on the right of Figure 9.12 present perhaps the strongest evidence for a genetic basis for intelligence. The intelligence scores of identical twins correlate with each other at about .85 when they are raised in the same home, which is much higher than the correlation for fraternal twins. Even when identical twins are adopted and raised apart, their intelligence scores are still correlated at approximately .80—a very strong relationship. In fact, this is about the same correlation that researchers
find when individuals take the same intelligence test twice and are compared with themselves!
Figure 9.12 Intelligence and Genetic Relatedness Several types of comparisons reveal genetic contributions to intelligence
(Plomin & Spinath, 2004). Generally, the closer the biological relationship between people, the more similar their intelligence scores. Source: Adapted from Plomin, R., & Spinath, F. M. (2004). Intelligence: Genetics, genes, and genomics. Journal of
Personality & Social Psychology, 86 (1), 112–129.
The Heritability of Intelligence
Overall, the heritability of intelligence is estimated to be between 40% and 80%
(Nisbett et al., 2012). However, interpreting what this means is extremely tricky. People often think that this means 40% or more of a person’s intelligence is determined by genes. But this is a serious misunderstanding of heritability.
A heritability estimate describes how much of the differences between people in a sample can be accounted for by differences in their genes (see Module 3.1 ). This may not sound like a crucial distinction, but in fact it’s extremely
important! It means that a heritability estimate is not a single, fixed number;
instead, it is a number that depends on the sample of people being studied. Heritability estimates for different samples can be very different. For example, the heritability of intelligence for wealthy people has been estimated to be about
72%, but for people living in poverty, it’s only 10% (Turkheimer et al., 2003). Why might this be?
The key to solving this puzzle is to recognize that heritability estimates depend on other factors, such as how different or similar people’s environments are. If people in a sample inhabit highly similar environments, the heritability estimate will be higher, whereas if they inhabit highly diverse environments, the heritability estimate will be lower. Because most wealthy people have access to good nutrition, good schools, plenty of enrichment opportunities, and strong parental support for education, these factors contribute fairly equally to the intelligence of wealthy people; thus, differences in their intelligence scores are largely explained by genetic differences. But the environments inhabited by people living in poverty differ widely. Some may receive good schooling and others very little. Some may receive proper nutrition (e.g., poor farming families that grow their own food), whereas others may be chronically malnourished (e.g., children in poor inner-city neighbourhoods). For poorer families, these differences in the environment would impact intelligence (as we discuss later in this module), leading to lower heritability estimates.
There are many other problems with interpreting heritability estimates as
indications that genes cause differences in intelligence. Two of the most important both have to do with an under-appreciation for how genes interact with
the environment. First, as discussed in Module 3.1 , genes do not operate in isolation from the environment. We know now that the “nature vs. nurture” debate has evolved into a discussion of how “nurture shapes nature.” Environmental factors determine how genes express themselves and influence the organism.
Second, genes that influence intelligence may do so indirectly, operating through other factors. For example, imagine genes that promote novelty-seeking. People with these genes would be more likely to expose themselves to new ideas and
new ways of doing things. This tendency to explore, rooted in their genes, may lead them to become more intelligent. However, in more dangerous environments, these novelty-seeking genes could expose the person to more danger. Therefore, genes that encourage exploratory behaviour might be related to higher intelligence in relatively safe environments, but in dangerous environments might be related to getting eaten by cave-bears more often.
Behavioural Genomics
Twin and adoption studies show that some of the individual differences observed in intelligence scores can be attributed to genetic factors. But these studies do not tell us which genes account for the differences. To answer that question,
researchers use behavioural genomics, a technique that examines how specific genes interact with the environment to influence behaviours, including those related to intelligence. Thus far, the main focus of the behavioural genomics approach to intelligence is to identify genes that are related to cognitive abilities,
such as learning and problem solving (Deary et al., 2010).
Overall, studies scanning the whole human genome show that intelligence levels can be predicted, to some degree, by the collection of genes that individuals
inherit (Craig & Plomin, 2006; Plomin & Spinath, 2004). These collections of genes seem to pool together to influence general cognitive ability; although each contributes a small amount, the contributions combine to have a larger effect. However, although almost 300 individual genes have been found to have a large
impact on various forms of mental retardation (Inlow & Restifo, 2004), very few genes have been found to explain normal variation in intelligence (Butcher et al., 2008). In one large study that scanned the entire genome of 7000 people, researchers found a mere six genetic markers that predicted cognitive ability. Taken together, these six markers only explained 1% of the variability in
cognitive ability (Butcher et al., 2008). Thus, there is still a long way to go before we can say that we understand the genetic contributors to intelligence.
One way of speeding the research up has been to develop ways of
experimenting with genes directly, in order to see what they do. Gene knockout (KO) studies involve removing a specific gene and comparing the
characteristics of animals with and without that gene. In one of the first knockout studies of intelligence, researchers discovered that removing one particular gene
disrupted the ability of mice to learn spatial layouts (Silva et al., 1992). Since this investigation was completed, numerous studies using gene knockout methods have shown that specific genes are related to performance on tasks that have
been adapted to study learning and cognitive abilities in animals (Robinson et al., 2011).
Scientists can also take the opposite approach; instead of knocking genes out, they can insert genetic material into mouse chromosomes to study the changes associated with the new gene. The animal that receives this so-called gene
transplant is referred to as a transgenic animal. Although this approach may sound like science fiction, it has already yielded important discoveries, such as
transgenic mice that are better than average learners (Cao et al., 2007; Tang et al., 1999).
One now-famous example is the creation of “Doogie mice,” named after the 1990s TV character Doogie Howser (played by a young Neil Patrick Harris), a genius who became a medical doctor while still a teenager. Doogie mice were
created by manipulating a single gene, NR2B (Tang et al., 1999). This gene encodes the NMDA receptor, which plays a crucial role in learning and memory. Having more NMDA receptors should, therefore, allow organisms to retain more information (and possibly to access it more quickly). Consistent with this view, Doogie mice with altered NR2B genes learned significantly faster and had better memories than did other mice. For example, when the Doogie mice and normal mice were put into a tank of water in which they had to find a hidden platform in order to escape, the Doogie mice took half as many trials to remember how to get out of the tank.
The Princeton University lab mouse, Doogie, is able to learn faster than other mice thanks to a bit of genetic engineering. Researchers inserted a gene known as NR2B that helps create new synapses and leads to quicker learning. Princeton University/KRT/Newscom
The different types of studies reviewed in this section show us that genes do
have some effect on intelligence. What they don’t really show us is how these effects occur. What causes individual differences in intelligence? One theory suggests that these differences could be due to varying brain size.
Working the Scientific Literacy Model Brain Size and Intelligence
Are bigger brains more intelligent? We often assume that to be the case—think of the cartoon characters that are super- geniuses; they almost always have gigantic heads. Or think about what it means to call someone a “pea brain.” Psychologists have not been immune to this belief, and many studies have searched for a correlation between brain size and intelligence.
What do we know about brain size and intelligence?
Brain-based approaches to measuring intelligence rest on a common-sense assumption: Thinking occurs in the brain, so a larger brain should be related to greater intelligence. But does scientific evidence support this assumption? In the days before modern brain imaging was possible, researchers typically obtained skulls from deceased subjects, filled them with fine- grained matter such as metal pellets, and then transferred the pellets to a flask to measure the volume. These efforts taught us very little about intelligence and brain or skull size, but a lot about problems with measurement and racial prejudice. In some cases, the studies were highly flawed and inevitably led to conclusions that Caucasian males (including the Caucasian male scientists who conducted these experiments) had the largest brains and,
therefore, were the smartest of the human race (Gould, 1981). Modern approaches to studying the brain and intelligence are far more sophisticated, thanks to newer techniques and a more enlightened knowledge of the brain’s form and functions.
How can science explain the relationship between brain size and intelligence? In relatively rare cases, researchers have had the two most important pieces of data needed: brains, and people attached to those brains who had taken intelligence tests when they were
alive. In one ambitious study at McMaster University, Sandra Witelson and her colleagues (2006) collected 100 brains of deceased individuals who had previously completed the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS). Detailed anatomical examinations and size measurements were made on the entire brains and certain regions that support cognitive skills. For women and right-handed men (but not left-handed men), 36% of the variation in verbal intelligence scores was accounted for by the size of the brain; however, brain size did not significantly account for the other component of intelligence that was measured, visuospatial abilities. Thus, it appears that brain size does predict intelligence, but certainly doesn’t tell the whole story.
In addition to the size of the brain and its various regions, there are other features of our neuroanatomy that might be important to consider. The most obvious, perhaps, is the convoluted surface of fissures and folds (called gyri; pronounced “ji-rye”) that
comprise the outer part of the cerebral cortex (see Figure 9.13 ). Interestingly, the number and size of these cerebral gyri seems strongly related to intelligence across different species; species that have complex cognitive and social lives, such as elephants, dolphins, and primates, have particularly convoluted
cortices (Marino, 2002; Rogers et al., 2010). And indeed, even within humans, careful studies using brain imaging technology have shown that having more convolutions on the surface of certain parts of the cortex was also positively correlated with scores on the WAIS intelligence test, accounting for
approximately 25% of the variability in WAIS scores (Luders et al., 2008).
Figure 9.13 Does Intelligence Increase with Brain Size?
While the size of the brain may have a modest relationship to intelligence, the convolutions or “gyri” along the surface of the cortex are another important factor: Increased convolutions are associated with higher intelligence test scores.
Can we critically evaluate this issue?
A common critique of studies examining brain size and IQ is that it is not always clear what processes or abilities are being tested. IQ scores could be measuring a number of things including working memory, processing speed, ability to pay attention, or even motivation to perform well on the test. Therefore, when studies show that brain size can account for 25% of the variability in IQ scores, it is not always clear what ability (or abilities) are underlying these results.
Another potential problem is the third-variable problem; even if brain size and performance on intelligence tests are correlated with each other, it might be the case that they are both related to some other factor, like stress, nutrition, physical health, environmental toxins, or the amount of enriching stimulation
experienced during childhood (Choi et al., 2008). If these other factors can account for the relationship between brain size and intelligence, then the brain–IQ relationship itself may be overestimated.
A final critique is simply the recognition that there is more to intelligence than just the size of one’s brain. After all, if brain size explains 25% of the variability in IQ scores, the other 75% must be due to other things.
Why is this relevant? This research is important for reasons that go far beyond the issue of intelligence and IQ tests. More generally, research on the neurology of intelligence has furthered our understanding of the relationship between brain structure and function, which are related to many important phenomena. For example, certain harmful patterns of behaviour, such as anorexia nervosa (a psychological disorder marked by self-starvation) or prolonged periods of alcohol abuse, both have been shown to lead to changes in cognitive abilities and corresponding loss of brain
volume (e.g., McCormick et al., 2008; Schottenbauer et al.,
2007). Measurements of brain volume have also played a key role in understanding the impaired neurological and cognitive development of children growing up in institutional settings (e.g., orphanages), as well as how these children benefit from
adoption, foster care, or increased social contact (Sheridan et al., 2012). Better understanding of how experiences like anorexia, alcoholism, and child neglect affect brain development may provide ways of developing effective interventions that could help people who have suffered from such experiences.
Module 9.3a Quiz:
Biological Influences on Intelligence
Know . . . 1. When scientists insert genetic material into an animal’s genome, the
result is called a . A. genomic animal B. transgenic animal C. knockout animal D. fraternal twin
Understand . . . 2. How do gene knockout studies help to identify the contribution of specific
genes to intelligence?
A. After removing or suppressing a portion of genetic material, scientists can look for changes in intelligence.
B. After inserting genetic material, scientists can see how intelligence has changed.
C. Scientists can rank animals in terms of intelligence and then see how the most intelligent animals differ genetically from the least intelligent.
D. They allow scientists to compare identical and fraternal twins.
Analyze . . . 3. Identical twins, whether reared together or apart, tend to score very
similarly on standardized measures of intelligence. Which of the following statements does this finding support?
A. Intelligence levels are based on environmental factors for both twins reared together and twins reared apart.
B. Environmental factors are stronger influences on twins raised together compared to twins reared apart.
C. The “intelligence gene” is identical in both twins reared together and reared apart.
D. Genes are an important source of individual variations in intelligence test scores.
Environmental Influences on Intelligence
As described earlier, research on the biological underpinnings of intelligence repeatedly emphasizes the importance of environmental factors. For example, environmental conditions determine which genes get expressed (“turned on”) for a given individual; thus, without the right circumstances, genes can’t appropriately affect the person’s development. Also, brain areas involved in intelligence are responsive to a wide variety of environmental factors. The full story of how “nature” influences intelligence is intricately bound up with the story of how “nurture” influences intelligence.
Both animal and human studies have demonstrated how environmental factors influence cognitive abilities. Controlled experiments with animals show that growing up in physically and socially stimulating environments results in faster learning and enhanced brain development compared to growing up in a dull
environment (Hebb, 1947; Tashiro et al., 2007). For example, classic studies in the 1960s showed that rats who grew up in enriched environments (i.e., these rats enjoyed toys, ladders, and tunnels) ended up with bigger brains than rats
who grew up in impoverished environments (i.e., simple wire cages). Not only
were their cerebral cortices approximately 5% larger (Diamond et al., 1964; Rosenzweig et al., 1962), but their cortices contained 25% more synapses (Diamond et al., 1964). With more synapses, the brain can make more associations, potentially enhancing cognitive abilities such as learning and creativity. In this section, we review some of the major environmental factors that influence intelligence.
Birth Order
One of the most hotly debated environmental factors affecting intelligence is simply whether you were the oldest child in your family, or whether you were lower in the pecking order of your siblings. Debate about this issue has raged for many decades within psychology. Regardless of the larger debate about why birth order might affect intelligence, the evidence seems to indicate that it does. For example, a 2007 study of more than 240 000 people in Norway found that the IQs of first-born children are, on average, about three points higher than those of second-born children and four points higher than those of third-born
children (Kristensen & Bjerkedal, 2007).
Socioeconomic status is related to intelligence. People from low-socioeconomic backgrounds typically have far fewer opportunities to access educational and other important resources that contribute to intellectual growth. John Dominis/Getty Images
Why might this be? The most important factor, researchers believe, is that older siblings, like it or not, end up tutoring and mentoring younger siblings, imparting
the wisdom they have gained through experience on to their younger siblings. Although this may help the younger sibling, the act of teaching their knowledge
benefits the older sibling more (Zajonc, 1976). The act of teaching requires the older sibling to rehearse previously remembered information and to reorganize it in a way that their younger sibling will understand. Teaching therefore leads to a deeper processing of the information, which, in turn, increases the likelihood that
it will be remembered later (see Module 7.2 ).
Before any first-born children reading this section start building monuments to their greatness, it is important to note that the differences between the IQs of first- and later-born siblings are quite small: three or four points. There will definitely be many individual families in which the later-born kids have higher IQs than their first-born siblings. Nevertheless, this finding is one example of how environments can influence intelligence.
Socioeconomic Status
One of the most robust findings in the intelligence literature is that IQ correlates strongly with socioeconomic status (SES). It is perhaps no surprise that children growing up in wealthy homes have, on average, higher IQs than those growing
up in poverty (Turkheimer et al., 2003), but there may be many reasons for this that have nothing to do with the “innate” or potential intelligence of the rich or the poor. Think of the many environmental differences and greater access to resources and opportunities enjoyed by the wealthy! For example, consider how much language children are exposed to at home; one U.S. study estimated that by age three, children of professional parents will have heard 30 million words, children of working-class parents will have heard only 20 million words, and children of unemployed African-American mothers will have heard only 10 million
words. Furthermore, the level of vocabulary is strikingly different for families in the different socioeconomic categories, with professional families using the most
sophisticated language (Hart & Risley, 1995).
Other studies have shown that higher SES homes are much more enriching and supportive of children’s intellectual development—high SES parents talk to their children more; have more books, magazines, and newspapers in the home; give
them more access to computers; take them to more learning experiences outside the home (e.g., visits to museums); and are less punitive toward their children
(Bradley et al., 1993; Phillips et al., 1998).
Unfortunately, the effects of SES don’t end here. SES interacts with a number of other factors that can influence intelligence, including nutrition, stress, and education. The difference between rich and poor people’s exposure to these factors almost certainly affects the IQ gap between the two groups.
Nutrition
It’s a cliché we are all familiar with—“you are what you eat.” Yet over the past century, the quality of the North American diet has plummeted as we have adopted foods that are highly processed, high in sugar and fat, low in fibre and nutrients, and laden with chemicals (preservatives, colours, and flavourings). Some evidence suggests that poor nutrition could have negative effects on intelligence. For example, research has shown that diets high in saturated fat quickly lead to sharp declines in cognitive functioning in both animal and human subjects. In contrast, diets low in such fats and high in fruits, vegetables, fish,
and whole grains are associated with higher cognitive functioning (Greenwood & Winocur, 2005; Parrott & Greenwood, 2007).
A massive longitudinal study on diet is currently underway in the United Kingdom. The Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children is following the development of children born to 14 000 women in the early 1990s. This research has shown that a “poor” diet (high in fat, sugar, and processed foods) early in life leads to reliably lower IQ scores by age 8.5, whereas a “health-conscious” diet (emphasizing salads, rice, pastas, fish, and fruit) leads to higher IQs. Importantly, this was true even when researchers accounted for the effects of other variables,
such as socioeconomic status (Northstone et al., 2012).
So what kinds of foods should we eat to maximize our brainpower? Although research on nutrition and intelligence is still relatively new, it would appear that eating foods low in saturated fats and rich in omega-3 fats, whole grains, and fruits and veggies are your smartest bets.
Stress
High levels of stress in economically poor populations is also a major factor in explaining the rich–poor IQ gap. People living in poverty are exposed to high levels of stress through many converging factors, ranging from higher levels of environmental noise and toxins, to more family conflict and community violence, to less economic security and fewer employment opportunities. These and many other stresses increase the amounts of stress hormones such as cortisol in their
bodies, which in turn is related to poorer cognitive functioning (Evans & Schamberg, 2009). High levels of stress also interfere with working memory (the ability to hold multiple pieces of information in memory at one time; Evans & Schamberg, 2009), and the ability to persevere when faced with challenging tasks, such as difficult questions on an IQ test (Evans & Stecker, 2004). These deficits interfere with learning in school (Blair & Razza, 2007; Ferrer & McArdle, 2004).
The toxic effects of chronic stress show up in the brain as well, damaging the neural circuitry of the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus, which are critical for working memory and other cognitive abilities (e.g., controlling attention, cognitive flexibility) as well as for the consolidation and storage of long-term memories
(McEwen, 2000). In short, too much stress makes us not only less healthy, but can make us less intelligent as well.
Education
One of the great hopes of modern society has been that universal education would level the playing field, allowing all children, rich and poor alike, access to the resources necessary to achieve success. Certainly, attending school has
been shown to have a large impact on IQ scores (Ceci, 1991). During school, children accumulate factual knowledge, learn basic language and math skills, and learn skills related to scientific reasoning and problem solving. Children’s IQ
scores are significantly lower if they do not attend school (Ceci & Williams, 1997; Nisbett, 2009). In fact, for most children, IQ drops even over the months
of summer holiday (Ceci, 1991; Jencks et al., 1972), although the wealthiest 20% actually show gains in IQ over the summer, presumably because they enjoy activities that are even more enriching than the kinds of experiences delivered in
the classroom (Burkam et al., 2004; Cooper et al., 2000). However, although education has the potential to help erase the rich–poor gap in IQ, its effectiveness at doing so will depend on whether the rich and poor have equal access to the same quality of education and other support and resources that would allow them to make full use of educational opportunities.
Clearly, environmental factors such as nutrition, stress, and education all influence intelligence, which gives us some clues as to how society can contribute to improving the intelligence of the population. Interestingly, exactly such a trend has been widely observed across the last half-century or so; it appears that generation after generation, people are getting smarter!
The Flynn Effect: IS Everyone Getting Smarter?
The Flynn effect , named after researcher James Flynn, refers to the steady population level increases in intelligence test scores over time (Figure 9.14 ). This effect has been found in numerous situations across a number of countries. For example, in the Dutch and French militaries, IQ scores of new recruits rose dramatically between the 1950s and 1980s—21 points for the Dutch and about
30 for the French (Flynn, 1987). From 1932 to 2007, Flynn estimates that, in general, IQ scores rose about one point every three years (Flynn, 2007).
Figure 9.14 The Flynn Effect For decades, there has been a general trend toward increasing IQ scores. This trend, called the Flynn effect, has been occurring since standardized IQ tests have been administered. Source: Flynn, J. R. (1999). Searching for justice: The discovery of IQ gains over time. American Psychologist, 54, 5–20.
The magnitude of the Flynn effect is striking. In the Dutch study noted above, today’s group of 18-year-olds would score 35 points higher than 18-year-olds in 1950. The average person back then had an IQ of 100, but the average person today, taking the same test, would score 135, which is above the cut-off considered “gifted” in most gifted education programs! Or consider this the opposite way—if the average person today scored 100 on today’s test, the average person in 1950 would score about 65, enough to qualify as mentally disabled.
How can we explain this increase? Nobody knows for sure, but one of the most likely explanations is that modern society requires certain types of intellectual skills, such as abstract thinking, scientific reasoning, classification, and logical analysis. These have been increasingly emphasized since the Industrial
Revolution, and particularly since the information economy and advent of computers have restructured society over the past half-century or so. Each successive generation spends more time manipulating information with their minds; more time with visual media in the form of television, video games, and now the Internet; and more time in school. It seems reasonable to propose that
these shifts in information processing led to the increases in IQ scores (Nisbett et al., 2012).
Module 9.3b Quiz:
Environmental Influences on Intelligence
Understand . . . 1. What have controlled experiments with animals found in regard to the
effects of the environment on intelligence?
A. Stimulating environments result in faster learning and enhanced brain development.
B. Deprived environments result in faster learning and enhanced brain development.
C. Stimulating environments result in slower learning and poorer brain development.
D. Deprived environments have no effect on learning and brain development.
2. In which way have psychologists NOT studied the major environmental factors that, through their interaction with genes, influence intelligence?
A. By measuring stress hormones among poor and affluent children and correlating them with intelligence test scores
B. By depriving some children of education and comparing them to others who attended school
C. By measuring children’s nutrition and then correlating it with intelligence scores
D. By correlating children’s birth order in their family with intelligence scores
Analyze . . . 3. What effect does birth order have on intelligence scores? Why is this the
case?
A. Older children often have lower IQs than their siblings because their parents spend more time taking care of younger children.
B. Younger siblings often have higher IQs because their older siblings spent time teaching them new information and skills.
C. Younger siblings have lower IQs because they have had less time to learn information and skills.
D. Older children typically have slightly higher IQs, likely because they reinforce their knowledge by teaching younger siblings.
Behavioural Influences on Intelligence
If you want to make yourself more intelligent, we’ve covered a number of ways to do that—eat a brain-healthy diet, learn how to manage stress better, keep yourself educated (if not in formal schooling, then perhaps by continuing to be an active learner), and expose yourself to diverse and stimulating activities. But is there anything else you can do? For example, if you want bigger muscles, you can go to the gym and exercise. Can you do the same thing for the brain?
Brain Training Programs
One potential technique to improve intelligence is the use of “brain training” programs designed to improve working memory and other cognitive skills. The idea behind such programs is that playing games related to memory and attention will not only improve your performance on these games, but will also help you use those abilities in other, real-world situations.
Research in this area initially appeared quite promising. For instance, in one line of research, a computer task (the “N-back” task) was used as an exercise program for working memory. In this task, people are presented with a stimulus, such as squares that light up on a grid, and are asked to press a key if the
position on the grid is the same as the last trial. The task gets progressively more difficult, requiring participants to remember what happened two, three, or more trials ago (although it takes considerable practice for most people to be able to reliably remember what happened even three trials ago). Practising the N-back task was shown to not only improve performance at that task, but also to
increase participants’ fluid intelligence (Jaeggi et al., 2008). Importantly, the benefits were not merely short term, but lasted for at least three months (Jaeggi et al., 2011).
However, recent reviews of this area of research suggest that we should be cautious when interpreting the results (and media reports). Many studies of brain-training programs involved small sample sizes; other studies included
major methodological flaws such as a lack of a control group (Simons et al., 2016). A more careful examination of this research area suggests that the effects of brain-training programs are typically quite limited. Practising games related to working memory will improve working memory, but will rarely have an effect on other types of tasks, particularly on behaviours occurring outside of the
laboratory (Melby-Lervåg & Hulme, 2013). Although these results are disappointing—particularly for people who have spent money on expensive brain-training programs—they help remind us of the importance of being critical consumers of scientific information.
Nootropic Drugs
Another behaviour that many people believe improves their cognitive functioning
is the use of certain drugs. Nootropic substances (meaning “affecting the mind”) are substances that are believed to beneficially affect intelligence. Nootropics can work through many different mechanisms, from increasing overall arousal and alertness, to changing the availability of certain neurotransmitters, to stimulating nerve growth in the brain.
Certainly, these drugs can work for many people. For example, two drugs commonly used are methylphenidate (Ritalin) and modafinil (Provigil). Methylphenidate is a drug that inhibits the reuptake of norepinephrine and dopamine, thus leaving more of these neurotransmitters in the synapses
between cells. Although generally prescribed to help people with attentional disorders, Ritalin can also boost cognitive functioning in the general population
(Elliott et al., 1997). Modafinil, originally developed to treat narcolepsy (a sleep disorder), is known to boost short-term memory and planning abilities by
affecting the reuptake of dopamine (Turner et al., 2003).
Boosting the brain, however, does not come without risk. For example, the long- term effects of such drugs are poorly understood and potential side effects can be severe. There can also be dependency issues as people come to rely on such drugs and use them more regularly, and problems with providing unfair advantages to people willing to take such drugs, which puts pressure on others
to take them as well in order to stay competitive (Sahakian & Morein-Zamir, 2007). Because of these risks, a September 2013 review in the Canadian Medical Association Journal recommended that doctors “should seriously consider refusing to prescribe medications for cognitive enhancement to healthy
individuals” (Forlini et al., 2013, p. 1047).
These risks have to be weighed against the potential benefits of developing these drugs, at least for clinical populations. For example, researchers in the United Kingdom have argued that if nootropic drugs could improve the cognitive functioning of Alzheimer’s patients by even a small amount, such as a mere 1% change in the severity of the disease each year, this would be enough not only to dramatically improve the lives of people with Alzheimer’s and their families, but to completely erase the predicted increases in long-term health care costs for the
U.K.’s aging population (Sahakian & Morein-Zamir, 2007).
As with most questions concerning the ethical and optimally desirable uses of technologies, there are no easy answers when it comes to nootropic drugs. But we would caution you—there are much safer ways to increase your performance than ingesting substances that can affect your brain in unknown ways.
In sum, although few people are blessed with brains as abnormally intelligent as Einstein’s, there are practical things anyone can do to maximize their potential brainpower. From eating better to providing our brains with challenging exercises, we can use the science of intelligence to make the most out of our
genetic inheritance.
Module 9.3c Quiz:
Behavioural Influences on Intelligence
Know . . . 1. A commonly used nootropic drug is .
A. Tylenol B. Ecstasy C. Ritalin D. Lamictal
Understand . . . 2. Which of the following seems to be affected by brain-training tasks like
the N-back task?
A. Crystallized intelligence B. Fluid intelligence C. A person’s dominant learning style D. A person’s belief that they are more intelligent
Analyze . . . 3. Research on nootropic drugs shows that
A. they have a much larger effect on intelligence than do environmental factors such as socioeconomic status.
B. they show low addiction rates and are therefore quite safe. C. they have a larger effect on long-term memory than on working
memory.
D. these drugs can produce increases in intelligence in some individuals.
Module 9.3 Summary
9.3a Know . . . the key terminology related to heredity, environment, and intelligence.
Flynn effect
gene knockout (KO) studies
nootropic substances
video deficit
Behavioural genetics typically involves conducting twin or adoption studies. Behavioural genomics involves looking at gene–behaviour relationships at the molecular level. This approach often involves using animal models, including knockout and transgenic models.
Based on the research we reviewed, there are many different strategies that are good bets for enhancing the cognitive abilities that underlie your own intelligence. (Note: some of these strategies are known to be helpful for children, and the effects on adult intelligence are not well researched.)
Choose challenging activities and environments that are stimulating and enriching.
Eat diets low in saturated fat and processed foods and high in omega-3 fatty acids, nuts, seeds, fruits, and antioxidant-rich vegetables.
Reduce sources of stress and increase your ability to handle stress well. Remain an active learner by continually adding to your education or learning. Don’t spend too much time watching TV and other media that are relatively poor at challenging your cognitive abilities.
The use of nootropic drugs remains a potential strategy for enhancing your cognitive faculties; however, given the potential side effects, addictive
9.3b Understand . . . different approaches to studying the genetic basis of intelligence.
9.3c Apply . . . your knowledge of environmental and behavioural effects on intelligence to understand how to enhance your own cognitive abilities.
possibilities, and the uncertainty regarding the long-term consequences of using such drugs, this option may not be the best way to influence intelligence.
Reviews of intelligence tests show that the oldest child in a family tends to have higher IQs than their younger siblings. However, this effect is quite small: 3 IQ points. Importantly, this difference is not due to the genetic superiority of the older siblings; rather, it is likely related to the fact that older children often spend time teaching things to their younger siblings.
9.3d Analyze . . . the belief that older children are more intelligent than their younger siblings.
Chapter 10 Lifespan Development
10.1 Physical Development from Conception through Infancy Methods for Measuring Developmental Trends 387
Module 10.1a Quiz 388
Zygotes to Infants: From One Cell to Billions 388
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: The Long-Term Effects of Premature Birth 392
Module 10.1b Quiz 394
Sensory and Motor Development in Infancy 394
Module 10.1c Quiz 399
Module 10.1 Summary 399
10.2 Infancy and Childhood: Cognitive and Emotional Development Cognitive Changes: Piaget’s Cognitive Development Theory 401
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Evaluating Piaget 404
Module 10.2a Quiz 406
Social Development, Attachment, and Self-Awareness 406
Module 10.2b Quiz 412
Psychosocial Development 412
Module 10.2c Quiz 415
Module 10.2 Summary 415
10.3 Adolescence Physical Changes in Adolescence 418
Module 10.3a Quiz 419
Emotional Challenges in Adolescence 419
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Adolescent Risk and Decision Making 420
Module 10.3b Quiz 422
Cognitive Development: Moral Reasoning vs. Emotions 422
Module 10.3c Quiz 425
Social Development: Identity and Relationships 425
Module 10.3d Quiz 427
Module 10.3 Summary 427
10.4 Adulthood and Aging From Adolescence through Middle Age 429
Module 10.4a Quiz 433
Late Adulthood 433
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Aging and Cognitive Change 436
Module 10.4b Quiz 437
Module 10.4 Summary 438
Module 12.1 Contemporary Approaches to Personality
Pearson Education
Learning Objectives
Know . . . the key terminology associated with contemporary approaches to personality. Understand . . . the behaviourist and social-cognitive views of personality. Apply . . . the Big Five personality traits to understand your own personality. Analyze . . . the personality roots of violence and prejudice. Analyze . . . the relative roles of personality traits and psychological and
12.1a
12.1b 12.1c
12.1d 12.1e
What does your living space say about you? That alphabetized bookshelf and bathroom full of grooming products suggest conscientiousness. The photos of Mount Everest and major European cities reveal an openness to experiencing new and exciting things. The three pet cats and extensive DVD collection? Possibly signs of an introverted homebody.
It might sound like we are just making assumptions here, but scientific research backs up the notion that personality can be measured by examining the details of our dwellings. Psychologist Sam Gosling and his students have, with permission, closely scrutinized people’s offices and
bedrooms for clues about their personality (Gosling, 2008; Gosling et al., 2002). Teams of seven or eight observers entered people’s bedrooms and offices and rated the personality types of the occupants with a standardized personality test. Not only did the observers reach close consensus on many measures of personality, but their ratings also matched up with how the occupants rated their own personality.
If you look around your own room, some parts of it may symbolize the “core” of who you are, whereas others reflect less “deep,” more superficial details about yourself. For example, your book collection and most treasured belongings may be very revealing, but what about the clothing strewn all over the floor? Does it mean that you are a lazy slob? Or that you are ambitious and live a busy life? Or simply that you are enjoying the freedom of not living with your parents? Which is more appropriate as an explanation: the dispositional (i.e., rooted in the kind of person you are) or the situational (i.e., external, circumstantial factors)? A key challenge for personality psychologists is figuring out how our personalities and circumstances work together in shaping our behaviour. This raises many important questions, to be addressed later in this module.
Focus Questions
physical states in determining behaviour.
1. What are the basic traits that make up human personality? 2. To what extent are our preferences, thoughts, and behaviours
determined by situational factors in- the-moment, versus more stable personality traits?
When you say to your friend, “Yeah, our date was pretty good. They were okay, but you know, they weren’t my kind of person,” we understand that “my kind of person” means something. We accept that the person being described is some “kind of person”—that they have regular patterns and ways of being. This is the
person’s personality ; their characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and behaving that is unique to each individual, and remains relatively consistent over time and situations. Psychologists have long searched for a theory of personality that can describe and explain how people develop these patterns, because we all want to find out what “kind of person” we are.
The Trait Perspective
If there are semi-stable patterns that differ from person to person, how can we measure those patterns? This quest, to shine the light of science on the very nature of our own selves, has resulted in two broad approaches to personality
measurement: the idiographic approach and the nomothetic approach.
When you try to figure out the people you know very well, you probably intuitively
adopt an idiographic approach , focusing on creating detailed descriptions of a specific person’s unique personality characteristics. So, when you are trying to figure out just what IS the problem with one of your friends or family members, you build a theory of the way that they are, the way your friendship or family history has affected them, and the weird idiosyncrasies that make them do the things they do. In doing so, you are taking an idiographic approach.
Idiographic approaches are helpful not only for understanding yourself and your social world, but also for examining the full range of human experience, from the
most disturbed to the healthiest and most highly functioning individuals. For example, criminal profilers may focus on a detailed study of a serial killer in order to help police in their investigation. At the other extreme, Abraham Maslow wanted to understand the people who had lived up to their fullest potential, who were in Maslow’s terms, “self- actualized.” Accordingly, Maslow performed detailed analyses of the biographies of famous people who were widely regarded
as being wise and fully functioning (Maslow, 1970). Maslow’s findings launched decades of work trying to uncover what makes human beings thrive and develop to their maximum potential.
In contrast, psychologists who take a nomothetic approach examine personality in large groups of people, with the aim of making generalizations about personality structure. Rather than trying to understand a specific person, psychologists taking a nomothetic approach may want to understand what personality factors, or traits, are relevant to understanding people. For example, wanting to know whether a certain “type” of person is more likely to exhibit a certain behaviour pattern (e.g., are people who are extraverted more likely to develop attentional disorders?), is a nomothetic question. Answering a question like this requires measuring some specific variable (e.g., extraversion) and examining whether it correlates with specific outcomes (e.g., attentional disorders). The key to nomothetic research is to identify the important personality traits that are related to whatever it is that you are interested in understanding.
There are many examples of nomothetic research in Canadian universities. Dr. Gordon Flett at York University has examined personality predictors of alcohol,
drug use, and depression in university students (e.g., Flett et al., 2009; Goldstein et al., 2009; Goldstein & Flett, 2009). Dr. Lawrence Walker at the University of British Columbia has sought to identify the “moral personality,”
seeking the personality factors that predict courage and heroism (Walker & Frimer, 2007; Walker et al., 2010). Dr. Jacob Hirsh at the Rotman School of Management in Toronto has examined the personality predictors of pro-
environmental motivations (Hirsh, 2010; Hirsh & Dolderman, 2007). Taking a nomothetic approach allows psychologists to examine what types of people are more or less likely to engage in certain behaviours, which is an important step toward being able to reduce undesired behaviours or more effectively promote
desired ones.
Early Trait Research
So, who are you anyway? What kind of person are you? Try to answer these questions. Seriously—stop reading right now, take out a piece of paper, and try to describe the kind of person you are. Write down “I am . . .” and complete the sentence 10 times.
Now take a look at your list. If you’re like most people, your list probably has
quite a few personality traits—words like extraverted or introverted, funny, ambitious, lazy, anxious, or easy-going. A personality trait describes a specific psychological characteristic that makes up part of a person’s personality; how that person is “most of the time.” Trait descriptors are useful as shortcuts to understanding people. Traits summarize a great deal of information about a person and help to predict how that person will behave across a range of situations. For example, an “extraverted” person is more likely to be comfortable in social situations, go to parties, and have a large number of friends than someone who is “introverted.”
As you can imagine, many different traits could be used to describe people, such as “shy,” “cheerful,” “outgoing,” and “adventurous.” The first systematic attempt to identify all possible traits (in the English language) was made in the 1930s by Gordon Allport, who tallied nearly 18 000 English words that could be used to
describe an individual’s physical and psychological attributes (Allport & Odbert, 1936). (Perhaps Allport himself would be described as “patient,” “methodical,” and “weird to talk to at a party.”) Allport then developed a theory of personality structure by organizing these words into traits, launching a strong trend in personality psychology that continues to this day—attempting to identify and measure the key personality traits.
To accomplish this, trait researchers have devised many different types of personality “scales.” Some, like the ones used in psychology research and described later in this chapter, are rigorously evaluated. Others, like the ones you find in popular magazines, are of questionable value. For example,
Cosmopolitan regularly includes personality scales in which you can discover all sorts of things about yourself; while it is possible that Cosmo has a team of highly qualified psychologists rigorously designing these scales, we do not recommend that you base your life decisions on your results to the “Are You Enough of a Bad Girl?” quiz.
It is clear that people love to know what “kind” of person they are. However, it is
often easier to make people believe that you are measuring their personality than it is to actually measure it. In fact, it is remarkably easy for people to be convinced that a personality profile describes them well. This can occur even when the profile is patently false and was not generated to describe them at all. This is popularly known as “the Barnum effect,” after the circus showman P. T. Barnum, due to his apparent statement “there’s a sucker born every minute.” (Ironically, P. T. Barnum never actually said this quote, which is widely attributed
to him [Saxon, 1989].) The Barnum effect hearkens back to the late 1940s, when psychologist Bertram Forer gave research participants a personality test and then generated a personality description that subjects believed was based on their test responses. Even though all participants were given exactly the same personality description, they found the profile to be highly convincing and descriptive of them as an individual. When asked to rate how well the profile described them, on a scale ranging from 0 (very poor) to 5 (excellent), the
average rating was an impressive 4.26 (Forer, 1949)!
As you can see from the profile Forer used (see Table 12.1 ), the statements were fairly general and most of them could apply to most people, at least some of the time. It is easy for people to see themselves in statements such as “While you have some personality weaknesses, you are generally able to compensate for them,” and of course, just about everybody tends to be extraverted
sometimes and introverted other times, or to have unrealistic goals. The Barnum effect may be a key reason why personality tests of questionable validity (as well as horoscopes, astrologers, psychics, and the like) are so widely believed.
Table 12.1 Bertram Forer’s Personality Profile Source: Forer, B. R. (1949). The fallacy of personal validation: A classroom demonstration of gullibility. Journal of Abnormal
and Social Psychology, 44, 118–123.
Forer provided the following profile to all of the participants in his study, regardless of
their answers on a personality test.
You have a great need for other people to like and admire you. You have a tendency to
be critical of yourself. You have a great deal of unused capacity that you have not
turned to your advantage. While you have some personality weaknesses, you are
generally able to compensate for them. Your sexual adjustment has presented
problems for you. Disciplined and self-controlled outside, you tend to be worried and
insecure inside. At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the
right decision or done the right thing. You prefer a certain amount of change and variety
and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations. You pride
yourself as an independent thinker and do not accept others’ statements without
satisfactory proof. You have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to
others. At times you are extraverted, affable, sociable, while at other times you are
introverted, wary, and reserved. Some of your aspirations tend to be pretty unrealistic.
Security is one of your major goals in life.
In contrast, rigorous empirical research over the past several decades has narrowed the many potential personality traits into a small number of factors. The
statistical technique called factor analysis is used to group items that people respond to similarly; for instance, the terms friendly, warm, and kind have similar meanings, and can be grouped in a cluster, referred to as a factor.
The Five Factor Model
Using factor analysis, psychologist Raymond Cattell (1946) narrowed the list of key personality traits to 16, thereby simplifying and standardizing the number of dimensions psychologists needed to describe the composition of personality.
Forty years later, McCrae and Costa (1987) created the Five Factor Model (FFM) , a trait-based theory of personality based on the finding that personality can be described using five major dimensions; this model has become the most popular trait-based approach for academic personality researchers, and has been cited in hundreds of research articles.
To understand the Big Five traits, consider what characteristics are associated with people high and low on that trait. These are the “kinds of people” described
by each trait (see Figure 12.1 ).
Figure 12.1 The Big Five Personality Dimensions A widely used measure of personality is the NEO-PI-R. Individuals rate
themselves on multiple questions that reflect the traits of openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. (To help you remember the Big Five, note that the first letters of the traits spell out OCEAN.) Source: Based on McCrae, R. R., & Costa, P. (1987). Validation of the Five-Factor Model of personality across instruments
and observers. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52 (1), 81–90.
Openness
Individuals high in openness (high Os) are the dreamers and creative types; they tend to be more “open” to new things—ideas, opinions, and perspectives that differ from theirs, and new ways of seeing a problem that they had not considered. They are more open to new experiences, tending to be curious and appreciative of art and unusual ideas. As a result, they often hold beliefs that would be considered “unconventional.” High Os are also likely to think more abstractly and to be more sensitively aware of their emotions.
Individuals low in openness (low Os) are the defenders of the system, preferring the conventional, the tried and true. They avoid the unknown and find security in the known. They prefer things that are tangible rather than symbolic, priding themselves on being “practical.” Low Os prefer things to be straightforward and generally dislike subtlety and complexity. They approach new information somewhat defensively—preferring to learn about things they already believe in, and paying less attention to information that challenges their perspective. Low Os tend to be resistant to change and suspicious of their emotions, placing more emphasis on the attempt to be rational and logical.
Conscientiousness
Highly conscientious people (high Cs) are the organizers—efficient, self- disciplined, and dependable. They are the ones who meet deadlines, plan ahead to achieve their goals, and are comfortable with schedules and lists, although at the expense of being flexible and spontaneous at times. High Cs are great employees and students, tending to achieve more in their careers due to their achievement orientation and tendency to get things done on time. They also live
longer, perhaps because they are more likely to engage in the positive health behaviours (e.g., eating well and exercising regularly) that the less conscientious among us never quite get around to doing. . . .
Low Cs are the easy-going ones, fun to hang out with, but not so great as collaborators on a project. Low Cs tend to be disorganized, careless with details, and have difficulty meeting deadlines. Although they may want to perform well at a task, they have difficulty disciplining themselves enough to actually get things done. Low Cs feel uncomfortable with schedules and detailed plans, preferring to “be in the moment.” Although low Cs suffer somewhat in life due to their lack of self-discipline, they benefit by not being as stressed about details and being able to still enjoy themselves when things don’t go according to plan.
Extraversion
Extraverts (high Es) are the socializers and sensation seekers. They are comfortable in more stimulating environments, and thus love the company of others, being seen as outgoing and energetic. Extraverts tend to be more assertive, talkative, and enthusiastic, preferring high levels of stimulation and excitement much of the time. They are fun to be around, but sometimes take things too far, as their love of stimulation puts them at higher risk for dangerous activities such as substance abuse.
Introverts (low Es) are the quiet ones. Although they like social contact, introverts also need time for solitary activities and “recharging their batteries.” They can be overwhelmed by the high levels of stimulation preferred by extraverts, so while the extraverts party it up and compete for all the attention, the introverts sit on the couch in the corner having great conversations with a friend or two. Introverts tend to be more cautious and reserved, and they are great when you need someone to really talk to.
Agreeableness
Highly agreeable people (high As) are warm and friendly people who are easy to like, easy to be friends with, and easy to have as part of your group. They are
kind, compassionate, and empathetic, and tend to be helpful and altruistic. They place strong value on getting along with people and are generally willing to put their own interests aside in order to please others or avoid conflict. Agreeable people are the ones who make it really hard to choose what movie to watch,
because they always want to know what movie you want to watch. . . . As you might expect, they make great team members, but their leadership skills often suffer because they are unwilling to assert their opinion.
Low As are the type who “put themselves first.” They value being authentic more than pandering to other people’s needs, making them more likely to assert their opinions and engage in conflict if necessary. Low As suffer socially somewhat, as they tend to be seen as cold, unfriendly, uncooperative, and unkind. They are often skeptical of other people’s motives, and tend to be less trusting of human nature in general. As you might expect, low As don’t experience much empathy, and tend to be self-interested rather than altruistic.
Neuroticism
To be called “neurotic” is not generally considered a compliment. Indeed, people high in neuroticism (high Ns) are often difficult to deal with, as their emotional volatility and general tendency to experience negative emotions makes them not much fun to be around. High Ns tend to be quite sensitive and experience strong reactions to stressful situations; as a result, they often interpret situations as overly threatening and magnify small frustrations into major problems. When they experience negative emotions, they have difficulty relaxing and “letting go” of their negative feelings, which makes these feelings persist, and persist, and persist. As a result of their difficulties regulating negative emotions, high Ns are the most vulnerable to anxiety and depressive disorders.
Low Ns, on the other hand, are the prototypical mentally healthy people. They tend to be secure and confident, and let go of negative emotions easily. Rather than blowing things out of proportion, the low Ns take the good with the bad, and deal with problems as they arise, but feel no need to create problems where there aren’t any, or to obsessively look for problems until they find them. Low Ns are excellent at managing their emotions, and are regarded by others as “stable.”
Taken together, the Big Five factors are extremely useful for understanding people’s behaviours, thoughts, and emotions, and predicting why people do the things that they do. Nevertheless, despite the usefulness of the Big Five, psychologists often find that there are other personality traits, outside of the Big Five, that are useful for understanding certain things, such as why people do things that are “evil.”
Module 12.1a Quiz: The Trait Perspective
Know . . . 1. Which of the following statements best describes the difference between
the nomothetic and idiographic approaches to personality?
A. The nomothetic approach focuses on traits found across large groups, whereas the idiographic approach focuses on individuals.
B. The idiographic approach focuses on traits found across large groups, whereas the nomothetic approach focuses on individuals.
C. The idiographic approach relies on measures such as the Big Five, whereas the Big Five is of no use to a nomothetic approach.
D. The idiographic approach allows psychologists to ask questions about the genetic and cultural basis of personality traits.
Understand . . . 2. is the Big Five factor that will likely have the greatest influence
on whether you get along with the people you work with.
A. Agreeableness B. Extraversion C. Openness D. Neuroticism
Apply . . . 3. You are the type of person who tends to go to the same restaurant and
order the same thing, sticking to your daily routine. You have even turned down opportunities to travel to new destinations. Which of the Big Five
factors best relates to this description of your personality?
A. Agreeableness B. Conscientiousness C. Openness D. Neuroticism
Beyond the Big Five: The Personality of Evil?
Most people struggle when they think about truly destructive human behaviours: child abuse, wartime atrocities, the Holocaust, 9/11. The more horror we allow
ourselves to contemplate, the more we must ask why? Why do people do such terrible things?
Following World War II, such questions were a major focus in personality psychology, as the world wanted to understand the rise of fascism and Hitler’s ability to mobilize millions of people to carry out his plans of destruction. Early research by Theodore Adorno suggested that a key personality type, the
authoritarian personality, was a big piece of the puzzle. Authoritarians were theorized to be rigid and dogmatic in their thinking, to separate their social world
into strict categories of Us and Them, and then to believe strongly in the superiority of Us and the inferiority of Them. As a result, authoritarians were more likely to endorse and engage in prejudice and violence, particularly toward
people in the “them” category (Adorno et al., 1950). Although there is some overlap between this construct and other, related personality factors (e.g., openness to experience), over the past several decades, personality researchers have discovered important personality traits that extend the Five Factor Model and help to shed light on the problem of human “evil.” Three lines of research are particularly important.
Honesty–Humility
First, Michael Ashton at Brock University and his colleagues have developed the HEXACO model of personality , a six-factor theory that generally replicates the five factors of the FFM and adds one additional factor: Honesty–Humility. Individuals scoring highly on this factor (high HHs) tend to be sincere, honest,
and modest, whereas those with low scores (low HHs) are deceitful, greedy, and
pompous (Ashton & Lee, 2007). Whereas high HHs are more likely to perform altruistic, pro-social behaviours, low HHs harbour more selfish, anti-social, and
violent tendencies (Ashton & Lee, 2008; de Vries & van Kampen, 2010), being more likely to “do whatever it takes” to get what they want, to manipulate others,
and to break the rules (Bourdage et al., 2007). Interestingly, low HHs feel a strong sense of self-importance and a feeling of entitlement, like they deserve to have their desires fulfilled. Thus, the HEXACO model seems to describe “evil” as heavily involving an excessive importance placed on the self, and none placed on the other (except in terms of how the other can be used to further the goals of the self).
The Dark Triad
A different set of research studies conducted at the University of British Columbia has uncovered three traits that are believed to be central to
understanding the personality roots of evil. This Dark Triad — Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and narcissism—describe a person who is socially destructive, aggressive, dishonest, and likely to commit harm in general (Paulhus & Williams, 2002). Taken together, these traits also describe a person who gives excessive importance to the self, and little to no importance to others.
Machiavellianism is a tendency to use people and to be manipulative and deceitful, lacking respect for others and focusing predominantly on one’s own self-interest. Relationships are approached strategically, using other people for how they might be able to provide some sort of benefit to the self.
Psychopathy is a general tendency toward having shallow emotional responses. Individuals scoring high in psychopathy veer toward highly stimulating activities and tend to feel little empathy for others. They often get a thrill out of conflict, exerting control, or even harming others, and feel little remorse for their actions.
Narcissism reflects an egotistical preoccupation with self-image and an excessive sense of self-importance. The extreme narcissist is “full of himself” (or herself). In Greek legend, the hunter Narcissus was filled with excessive pride
and adoration toward himself. This was his fatal flaw, however, as he was so transfixed by his own gaze reflecting in a pool of water that he died by the poolside, still staring at his reflection. Narcissists can often be charming, but are difficult to have as relationship partners because they tend to always put themselves first rather than considering their partner’s needs.
Considering these traits separately yields some important insights; for example, people high on different traits may become aggressive for different reasons
(Jones & Paulhus, 2010). But their real power comes when you consider them all together. The convergence of these three factors, the Dark Triad, strongly predicts anti-social tendencies. People who score highly on all three of the Dark Triad traits are substantially more likely to commit harm to others, having little empathy or other constraints to prevent them from doing so.
Right-Wing Authoritarianism
In a third line of research, Bob Altemeyer at the University of Manitoba has
identified Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) as a problematic set of personality characteristics that also predisposes people to certain types of violent or anti-social tendencies. RWA involves three key tendencies:
1. obeying orders and deferring to the established authorities in a society; 2. supporting aggression against those who dissent or differ from the
established social order; and 3. believing strongly in maintaining the existing social order (Altemeyer,
1996).
At the centre of the RWA personality is a strong tendency to think in dogmatic terms, where, metaphorically speaking, everything is either black or white, with no shades of grey. RWAs tend to hold strong beliefs and are highly resistant to
changing them (Altemeyer, 1996). They are generally more prejudiced, tending to negatively judge people who hold different perspectives from them (see Module 13.2 ). As a result, RWAs are likely to advocate a harsh stance toward people who deviate from the established social order, such as political activists,
feminists, atheists, and members of ethnic minorities (Goodman & Moradi, 2008; Haddock et al., 1993; Narby et al., 1993). Given their unquestioning acceptance of authority figures, high RWAs are more likely to agree with
unethical decisions made by leaders (Son Hing et al., 2007), and to have positive attitudes toward corrupt governments (Altemeyer, 1996).
As a result of these tendencies, high RWA individuals were likely instrumental in the rise of fascism that led to World War II, and will likely play important roles in the repressive dictatorships, destructive business practices, and unhealthy family structures of the future.
The theory of Right-Wing Authoritarianism also shares with the previous two theories an emphasis on people placing excessive emphasis on their own self- importance. In the case of RWA, this manifests as excessive certainty and unwavering conviction in one’s personal opinions, coupled with strong in-group favouritism and beliefs that are prejudiced and derogatory towards members of other “out-groups.”
Working the Scientific Literacy Model Right-Wing Authoritarianism at the Group Level
What do we know about RWA? As we discussed above, personality researchers have identified RWA as a cluster of characteristics that make society a less warm and friendly place, being related to generally harmful tendencies such as holding prejudiced views against other groups and an excessive and closed-minded allegiance to societal conventions. It’s relatively easy to imagine how people who are high in RWA might end up behaving in social situations. But it’s another thing entirely to consider what could happen in situations involving lots of people high in RWA. When a group of closed-minded, prejudiced, violence-prone individuals get together, what could possibly go wrong?
How can science determine how RWA affects groups?
In one fascinating and highly disturbing study, Altemeyer (1996) selected high- and low-RWA participants to play a complex role- playing simulation of the Earth’s future, called the Global Change Game. This game is generally played by 50–70 people who are organized into groups that represent different regions of the world; these groups then make decisions about how their region behaves on the international stage. For example, participants decide how their region will deal with problems such as environmental degradation, poverty, overpopulation, and military threats. The simulated conditions of the Earth change depending on the actions of the players, thus providing a fairly realistic simulation of the challenges of governance in the international community.
In order to test how RWAs play the game, Altemeyer ran through the game two times, once with 67 individuals who scored very low on the RWA scale, and once with 68 people who scored very high. Each simulation covered 40 years of time into Earth’s future. The results were, frankly, astonishing.
In the low-RWA group, there were no wars or military build-up over the 40-year time period. Instead, regions steadily downsized their militaries and diverted the money into humanitarian and environmental projects. They also collectively resolved challenges through international meetings and cooperation. At one point, a global crisis occurred due to a threat to the Earth’s ozone layer; players responded by holding a group meeting, and agreeing to make large investments in technology development so that they could collectively solve the problem. By the end of the game, food, health services, and jobs were provided for almost all people on Earth, resulting in a peaceful, stable world.
In the high-RWA group, players tended to interpret the actions of
others as aggressive and responded in kind. Militaries quickly grew and war ensued, leading to a global nuclear war that wiped out every human being on the planet. At this point, the players were given a second chance to play, starting at a point prior to the nuclear war. Despite having the chance to learn from their earlier mistakes, the players nevertheless were incapable of getting along with each other. When the ozone crisis occurred, no international summit was called and only one region took action to avert the crisis. Instead of cooperation, players remained suspicious of each other and rapidly developed their militaries. One major military conflict killed 400 million people, and players poured so much money into military expenses that devastating social and environmental problems were never dealt with. At the end of the 40-year period, the world was again divided into armed camps on the brink of all-out war.
At the very least, this simulation suggests that we have to consider not only how factors like RWA operate in isolation, but how they operate in interaction with other people in real situations. Studying how personality characteristics operate on more collective scales is a major new frontier for the personality field that needs further exploration. It also suggests that we need to think carefully, as a society, about the personality characteristics of the people we allow into positions of power. Because these simulations suggest quite strongly that if several highly authoritarian leaders ended up in some sort of conflict, they may be highly prone to escalating conflicts to acts of extreme violence.
Can we critically evaluate this research? There are several methodological limitations to this study that should be taken into consideration when evaluating the findings. First, there are external validity concerns; for example, playing a game with no real consequences does not necessarily indicate how people would respond in a real-life situation. It is possible
that in a real situation, people would be more sensitive to the consequences of their actions and would not be so willing to risk human lives. Furthermore, the simulations were only performed on one night with each group; therefore, results could have been due to chance factors, such as particular individuals having a strong impact on the outcomes. Also, because only university students participated in the study, the results may not generalize to the rest of the population. Obviously, this was not a highly controlled set of studies, and the findings must therefore be interpreted very cautiously. However, as a case study of this particular type of competitive circumstance involving high- and low-RWAs, the results remain quite alarming and suggestive.
Why is this relevant? This research illustrates the highly destructive impact that authoritarian personalities may have in group settings, and it sounds a clear bell of warning in the 21st century. We are living in a time in which our world faces unprecedented challenges that require international cooperation, yet intolerance and intergroup hostilities are rampant and ideological fundamentalism and fanaticism heavily influence politics in many countries. Greater understanding of the potential roots of intergroup hostility in individuals’ personalities is urgently needed at this time.
Module 12.1b Quiz:
Beyond the Big Five: The Personality of Evil?
Know . . . 1. How does the HEXACO model of personality differ from the Big Five
factors?
A. HEXACO is a nomothetic model whereas the Big Five is an
idiographic model.
B. The Big Five model includes five traits whereas the HEXACO model explains personality using three traits.
C. HEXACO is the only personality theory to include psychopathy. D. HEXACO includes a sixth personality trait: honesty–humility.
Understand . . . 2. One reason for going beyond the Big Five, such as the three lines of
research on Honesty–Humility, the Dark Triad, and Right-Wing Authoritarianism, is
A. they predict anti-social tendencies, such as violence and prejudice, better than the Big Five traits.
B. they are idiographic approaches, which supplement the nomothetic approach taken in the Five Factor Model.
C. these three theories account for states and situational factors, whereas the Big Five does not.
D. these three theories can be used to diagnose personality disorders that could justify preventative action, such as incarcerating “dangerous” personalities before they are able to commit any crimes and cause harm to others.
Apply . . . 3. Lisa and Elaine work at the same place and were both being considered
for a promotion. In order secure the promotion for herself, Lisa told her bosses lies about Elaine being selfish and difficult to work with. As a result, Elaine did not receive the promotion. Lisa’s behaviour is an example of which personality trait?
A. Machiavellianism B. Psychopathy C. Neuroticism D. Humility
Personality Traits over the Lifespan
Have you ever looked back on something you wrote several years ago, perhaps
in a diary or journal, and wondered, “Who was that person who wrote these things?” Or maybe you have looked back at someone you once dated and wondered, “Who was I when I chose to date that person? It certainly wasn’t ‘me’!” One of the most fascinating issues in personality psychology is whether we stay basically the same, or whether our fundamental personalities change as we age.
Temperaments
A mountain of research from different areas within psychology has revealed considerable stability in our personalities. In fact, given the large genetic contribution to personality factors, our personalities start even before we are
born, so could be expected to remain largely stable over time (Plomin & Caspi, 1999; Yamagata et al., 2006).
In child development studies, researchers have found that infants possess
different temperaments right from birth, which also supports the view that the seeds of our personalities are present right from the start. Infants display their temperamental differences along dimensions such as activity level, mood,
attention span, and distractibility (Rothbart & Bates, 2006; Thomas & Chess, 1977). As most parents with multiple children can attest, kids come “hard-wired” to be a certain way. Some infants are generally active and happy, whereas others are more tranquil, and still others are easily upset. So, if you’re a parent pulling your hair out with your chronically distressed child who seems impossible to deal with, don’t judge yourself too harshly. Remind yourself that infants have different temperaments and your power as a parent is small compared to the power of their genes.
Thus, temperament seems to represent an innate, biological foundation upon which personality is built. This, combined with the genetic research, suggests that personality traits should be stable over time. To some extent, research confirms that this is the case: Infant temperament predicts the adult personality
traits of neuroticism, extraversion, and conscientiousness (Evans & Rothbart, 2007).
One amazing study that followed the same children from age 3 until adulthood showed that temperament at 3 years of age was strongly predictive of
behavioural tendencies, personality, and life outcomes many years later (Caspi, 2000). Three main temperaments were identified: well-adjusted (capable of self- control, confident, not overly upset by new people or situations); under-controlled (impulsive, restless, distractible, emotionally volatile); and inhibited (socially uncomfortable, fearful, easily upset by strangers). Just over 10 years later, children of different temperaments had developed quite different behaviour
patterns. The under-controlled children (relative to the other groups) had become the most likely to engage in externalizing behaviours (fighting, lying, disobeying), whereas the inhibited children developed mainly internalizing behaviour patterns (e.g., worrying, crying easily). By age 18, their emerging adult personalities were reflections of their temperaments at age 3.
Is Personality Stable Over Time?
There are a number of factors—both behavioural and biological—that make personality stable over time. Personality processes tend to become self- perpetuating; personality traits that lead to behaviours that receive positive reinforcement are more likely to become stable characteristics of that individual
(Heatherton & Weinberger, 1994). As an example, take the personality factor of conscientiousness. As we discussed earlier, highly conscientious people will tend to be organized, punctual, and dependable; they are therefore more likely to succeed, be respected by others, and create professional opportunities for themselves. As they experience success, this feeds back to reinforce those qualities.
You can also understand how “personality is destiny” by considering the basic insight of neuroscience: neurons that fire together wire together. Thus, we know that the more that people practise a certain skill, the more they train their brains to be good at that skill. Similarly, the more that people practise being extraverted, open-minded, conscientious, agreeable, or neurotic, the more they train their brains to function in that manner. This can also be seen as a positive feedback system; personality structures influence patterns in the person’s life and build networks in the person’s brain in ways that reinforce themselves, leading
personality to be quite stable over time. Consistent with this view, researchers analyzing the results of over 150 studies involving almost 50 000 participants found that personality stability is lowest for young children and highest for people
over 50 (Roberts & DelVecchio, 2000).
However, research has also shown that personality can change, particularly in late adolescence and early adulthood. For example, young adults tend to experience fewer negative emotions than do adolescents, reflecting decreases in neuroticism. Also, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and social dominance (an
aspect of extraversion) all increase in early adulthood (Roberts et al., 2006; see Figure 12.2 ). Take a moment and consider why personalities change in these systematic ways over time. One likely explanation is that, over time, our environments change and so do the roles we play in those environments. For example, adults have to be more conscientious than children because they have so many more responsibilities—like taking care of their unconscientious children! Over time there are many such changes—in our environments, our social roles, the amount of choice and power we have, the sophistication of our thinking processes, the development of our bodies and brains, and many other things— so there may be many reasons why personalities change over time.
Figure 12.2 Personality Stability and Change over the Lifespan
Average scores of Big Five traits change over the lifespan. Generally, most traits become more positive through adulthood, although there are anomalies. Social dominance (an aspect of extraversion) remains stable after age 40. Conscientiousness does not begin rising until after the college years. Openness to experience only rises up to the college years, then remains largely stable until
old age, when it declines (Roberts et al., 2006). Source: Based on Roberts, B., Walton, K., & Viechtbauer, W. (2006). Patterns of mean-level change in personality traits
across the life-course: A meta-analysis of longitudinal studies. Psychological Bulletin, 132 (1), 1–25.
Nevertheless, even these data describe a kind of personality stability, in that although people’s personality traits may fluctuate over time, their rank ordering in the population remains very stable. That is, people who are more extraverted than others at time one also tend to be more extraverted than others at time two, even though the overall level of extraversion may change over that time period
(McCrae & Costa, 1990).
Personality Traits and States
Trait labels may go a long way toward describing what people are like. However, many psychologists are quick to point out that no matter how useful traits may seem, people’s behaviour is also determined by situational factors and context. You may know someone whom you would describe as very calm and tranquil, yet one day he curses and screams at other drivers on the road. In contrast to a
personality trait, a state is a temporary physical or psychological engagement that influences behaviour. Perhaps your normally calm friend lashed out at other drivers on the road because he was criticized earlier that day or made a mistake that made him feel foolish, and so he was defensively displacing his bad feelings onto other people. Even people who seem highly consistent in how they express their neuroticism, agreeableness, or extraversion will not behave in the same way across all situations, and this observation has led to some strong criticisms
of trait theories of personality (Mischel, 1968; Mischel & Shoda, 1998). However, we generally understand now that states and traits work together; traits describe a person’s general personality tendencies, whereas states describe what that person is like in specific sets of circumstances.
The specific ways in which states and situational factors interact to influence us is a challenging topic that research has only begun to scratch the surface of. Try to think of the number of different situations or states you find yourself in across any average day. For example, you can be awake, asleep, or half-asleep; happy; sad; excited; skeptical; embarrassed; confident; or unsure of yourself. You could be having a crisis or you could be completely relaxed. The list could go on forever—and as you might have guessed, psychologists have tried to see just how long it goes. In one study, 77 college students were asked to describe as many situations as they could that they might encounter. Their total reached more than 7000. Perhaps you can now see why many psychologists would
rather focus on five personality dimensions. Fortunately, Saucier and colleagues (2007) took these 7000 situations and reduced them to four general aspects of situations that are most likely to influence our behaviour:
1. Locations (e.g., being at work, school, or home) 2. Associations (e.g., being with friends, alone, or with family) 3. Activities (e.g., awake, rushed, studying) 4. Subjective states (e.g., mad, sick, drunk, happy)
These situations influence how and when our personality traits are expressed. Identifying these situations is important because they interact with personality traits to determine our behaviour.
Module 12.1c Quiz:
Personality Traits over the Lifespan
Know . . . 1. Which of the following is not a situational factor that is likely to influence
your behaviour?
A. The location in which a behaviour is being performed B. The degree to which you are an extravert C. Whether you are drunk or sober D. The people that you are with at the time
Understand . . . 2. In studies of children’s temperament, which label would most likely be
applied to children who tended to be impulsive, restless, and distractible?
A. internalized B. well-adjusted C. inhibited D. under-controlled
Analyze . . . 3. Your friend, who is normally introverted, is outraged at the taxi driver who
is trying to overcharge you. He is cursing at the driver in a verbal
altercation. This event is most likely due to his . A. temperament B. subjective state C. idealized self D. Big Five personality traits
Behaviourist and Social-Cognitive Perspectives
You probably didn’t have much trouble understanding the trait perspective to personality; indeed, using traits to describe people is something we do regularly, particularly in Western cultures. However, the trait approach does tend to reinforce certain assumptions that other psychologists have called into question. Most importantly, the trait approach reinforces the assumption that we carry our personality characteristics around inside us; we treat traits like they are “things” that we “have,” which then influence our thoughts, feelings, and behaviours. This approach does not examine how personalities are influenced by our experiences.
The Behaviourist Perspective
The behaviourist would note any identifiable patterns of behaviour and seek to understand how that behaviour was elicited by specific environmental conditions. Notable psychologist B. F. Skinner, for example, believed that “personality” is simply a description of the response tendencies that occur in different situations. For example, when with a group of people, your behavioural responses to that situation might include dominating the conversation, asking a lot of questions, laughing along at other people’s jokes, or generally remaining silent. Presumably, the behaviours you engage in are based on your past experiences; if you tend to dominate the conversation and laugh at people’s jokes, then you were likely reinforced for those behaviours in the past. A behaviourist might note that using the personality dimension of “extraversion” is an unnecessary addition —it is just a label that does not help us understand the simple relationship
between stimulus and response (Figure 12.3 ).
Figure 12.3 Behavioural and Social-Cognitive Approaches to Personality (a) Behaviourist Account of Personality. Behaviourists thought that what psychologists call personality was an expression of relationships between behaviour, rewards, and punishment. Behaviourists avoided referring to personality traits and dispositions, instead focusing on how past experiences predict future behaviours. For example, whether someone tends to be pessimistic might be based on past experiences of feeling a lost sense of control.
(b) Reciprocal Determinism and the Social-Cognitive Approach. According to Albert Bandura and colleagues, personality is a product of dynamic interactions between behaviour and reinforcement, and, importantly, the beliefs, expectancies, and dispositions of the individual. Source: Ciccarelli, Saundra K.; White, J. Noland, Psychology: An Exploration (Subscription) 2nd Ed., ©2012. Reprinted and
Electronically reproduced by permission of Pearson Education, Inc., New York, NY.
The Social-Cognitive Perspective
In the mid-20th century, behaviourism gave way to the emerging social-cognitive perspective; this had a major impact on our understanding of personality. Specifically, the social-cognitive theorists, like Albert Bandura, placed central importance on the role of cognition and the person’s inner subjective interpretation of their circumstances. No longer was the individual simply an object, affected by environmental circumstances; now the person became an agent, actively constructing meaning out of her circumstances, and then making choices to behave in ways that affect those circumstances. From a social-
cognitive perspective, what became clear was the relationship between the person and the environment, plus how this relationship is bound up with the person’s thoughts and interpretations.
According to Bandura’s social-cognitive theory, personality develops out of the person’s interaction with the environment, but where this differs from
behaviourism is that the person ends up forming beliefs about their relationship to the environment, especially beliefs about their own actions and the likely consequences that will follow from their choices. For example, Bandura was
keenly interested in the concept of self-efficacy, the belief that ones’ attempts to accomplish a specific task will be successful. People with a higher degree of self- efficacy are far more likely to take action, especially difficult actions where the rewards are not immediately obvious, whereas people with little self-efficacy for a task will be unlikely to try, and will give up more easily. Thus, Bandura emphasized how beliefs, such as self-efficacy beliefs, form out of our interactions with the environment. These beliefs then become their own causal force, exerting influence over our behaviours and how we interact with the
environment.
If you put all this together, you can see how Bandura saw personality as a kind of integrated web of many different processes. His central idea was called reciprocal determinism , based on the idea that the person and the environment co-create each other; thus personality is what emerges from the
interactions between behaviour, internal (personal) factors, and external (situational) factors, all of which mutually influence each other (see Figure 12.3 ). The ultimate goal of a social-cognitive perspective is to achieve a fully holistic understanding of the person as a system of interdependent processes.
Researchers like Bandura appreciated the added insight that was encouraged by taking a social-cognitive approach to understanding people. Focusing on thoughts and beliefs opened up whole layers of beliefs, interpretations, expectations, and biases for consideration. For example, examining a person’s beliefs may reveal that they think they are worthless, that other people generally won’t like them, that they tend to mess things up, or have other self-defeating convictions. These beliefs may be the most important force keeping their “personality” (i.e., their pattern of interaction with the environment) from changing. The hope, therefore, is that by learning to change some aspects of the social-cognitive system, such as self-defeating beliefs, the whole system can change.
For example, imagine a person who is highly neurotic (from a trait perspective). Knowing this may make the person want to improve and become less neurotic and unpleasant to be around. But, this doesn’t really give much guidance as to how to actually DO this. What is one supposed to change, in order to “be a different person?”
A social-cognitive theorist like Bandura would take a look at the processes through which the person seemed to express and reinforce their neuroticism. Perhaps the person holds certain expectations, like fear-based beliefs that things will generally turn out poorly, or that other people can’t be trusted to do the right thing. As a result, the person feels a lot of anxiety and tries to deal with this by controlling things around them, thus developing a pattern of being controlling,
critical, and unwilling to trust or rely on others. As you start to “unpack” this whole system of self-reinforcing beliefs and behaviours, you find the specific factors that could help that person change. For example, perhaps this specific person could examine the beliefs they hold about trusting other people and identify how these are connected to other beliefs (e.g., “I will do a better job if I do it myself”), which in turn are connected to other beliefs (e.g., “If I mess things up, people will be angry with me”). Through this kind of “analysis” of related beliefs, the person uncovers specific leverage points—processes that they can change that will then change their belief system.
Module 12.1d Quiz:
Behaviourist and Social-Cognitive Perspectives
Know . . . 1. Which of the following concepts developed by Bandura refers to
interactions that occur among behaviour, internal factors, and external factors as an explanation for personality?
A. Reciprocal determinism B. Positive psychology C. Intersubjectivity D. Egocentrism
Understand . . . 2. Kaitlin describes herself as unmotivated. She has not felt rewarded by
her attempts to succeed at school or work and, therefore, has given up trying. How might a psychologist who adopts a strict behaviourist approach account for Kaitlin’s behaviour?
A. Kaitlin believes that she cannot succeed and, therefore, avoids putting herself in situations where she might fail.
B. Kaitlin has a history of not being reinforced for trying to succeed and, therefore, has stopped trying.
C. Kaitlin focuses too much on negatives and does not have a positive outlook on life.
D. Kaitlin has low levels of the trait known as extraversion.
Analyze . . . 3. Alternative approaches to personality such as the behaviourist and
cognitive approaches complement trait theories of personality because
A. these alternative approaches help to account for how traits interact with behaviour and personal experience.
B. trait theories focus on the negatives of personality. C. it is easier to observe behaviour than to ask someone to fill out a
personality inventory.
D. trait theories focus only on the positive aspects of personality.
Module 12.1 Summary
the Dark Triad
factor analysis
Five Factor Model (FFM)
HEXACO model of personality
idiographic approach
nomothetic approach
personality
personality trait
reciprocal determinism
Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA)
state
Know . . . the key terminology associated with contemporary approaches to personality.
12.1a
Understand . . . the behaviourist and social-cognitive views of personality.
12.1b
A strict behavioural account of personality identifies the stimuli that control a person’s responses. From a behaviourist perspective, there is little need for trait terminology, such as neuroticism or conscientiousness, and no reference to cognitive factors such as beliefs or thoughts. The social-cognitive approach to personality instead emphasizes that situations, behaviours, and thoughts reciprocally determine each other.
Psychologists usually describe individuals based on their scores on personality tests involving the Big Five traits, such that someone might rate high, medium, or low on each trait.
Apply Activity Use Table 12.2 on page 504 to describe your own personality in terms of the Big Five, and cite examples of specific behaviours and habits that correspond to
each trait. Before you begin this exercise, review Figure 12.1 , which outlines some of the major characteristics of high and low scores on each of the five factors.
Table 12.2 Applying the Five Factor Model For each trait, try to determine if you would score low, medium, or high if you were to complete a test based on the Five Factor Model. Cite specific examples of behaviours and preferences that support your ranking.
Factor Low / Medium / High Specific Examples
Openness
Conscientiousness
Extraversion
Agreeableness
Apply . . . the Big Five personality traits to understand your own personality.
12.1c
Neuroticism
Canadian researchers have identified three sets of factors that predict violence and prejudice that are not fully captured by the Five Factor Model. The first is the Honesty–Humility dimension of the HEXACO model of personality. The second is the Dark Triad of psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and narcissism. The third is Right-Wing Authoritarianism. Research has found that these traits predict many dysfunctional patterns of thoughts, emotions, and behaviours. Understanding the causal underpinnings of these traits and developing strategies to help individuals with such personality traits would be a key advance in promoting a healthier and more peaceful society.
The debate over whether personality traits influence behaviour or whether situational factors play a bigger role in behaviour is ongoing in the field of personality psychology. In reality, both sets of factors are important. Personality traits can be remarkably consistent, yet the situations we find ourselves in can lead to unexpected behaviour.
Analyze . . . the personality roots of violence and prejudice.12.1d
Analyze . . . the relative roles of personality traits and psychological and physical states in determining behaviour.
12.1e
Module 12.2 Cultural and Biological Approaches to Personality
Christopher Futcher/E+/Getty Images
Learning Objectives
Know . . . the key terminology associated with cultural and biological approaches to personality. Understand . . . how evolutionary theories explain personality.
12.2a
12.2b
Apparently, if you’re travelling abroad, it is a good idea to sew a Canadian flag somewhere onto your backpack. The reason is that people in most parts of the world, people believe that Canadians are generally nice, polite, and friendly. So, wearing the maple leaf should elicit positive responses from other people.
Are these beliefs about Canadians true? Obviously, there are all sorts of different people living in a country. Nevertheless, there does often seem to be a kind of “national character,” doesn’t there? Just try this—imagine the prototypical Swedish person. Now notice what came to your mind. The manic Swedish chef? Icy blond supermodels drinking vodka in a snowbank and looking at you with cool disdain? Now imagine a British person. Japanese? Australian? Iraqi? Jamaican? Did you find that specific types of people popped into your head for each example? Whether we endorse specific stereotypes or not, we certainly have absorbed basic sets of beliefs about people from different cultures, and they tend to come to our minds. But are these ideas accurate? Is there such a thing as “national character” that applies to entire populations?
These questions are extremely interesting but unfortunately, we don’t yet have all the answers. Personality psychologists are extensively studying cultural differences and similarities in personality and are working to understand how broad cultural forces interact with other factors to give rise to our personalities. In this module, we will explore the convergence of cross-cultural, evolutionary, and biological perspectives. By the end, we will have a better understanding of how these factors interact.
Focus Questions
Apply . . . your knowledge to understand how arousal is related to extraversion. Analyze . . . claims that males and females have fundamentally different personalities. Analyze . . . the genetic basis of personality.
12.2c
12.2d
12.2e
1. Does culture influence the types of personality traits we find across human societies?
2. How do evolutionary and biological approaches add to our understanding of personality?
Culture and Personality
Would you say Americans are WEIRD? It’s okay, don’t feel uncomfortable; this is a bit of a trick question. In this particular case, “WEIRD” stands for “Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic.” So yes, it would be fair to say that, on average, people from several different cultures are WEIRD—Canadians,
Western Europeans, Australians, and definitely Americans (Henrich et al., 2010).
So, why does this matter? Consider this: Do you think there are any major differences between people who are WEIRD and people who are not? Of course there are. An “average” Torontonian likely would have very little in common with an “average” rural Mongolian farmer, for example.
Now consider that almost everything you know about psychology is based on studying people from WEIRD cultures. One study conducted at the University of British Columbia showed that 96% of psychology studies are conducted on a
mere 12% of the population—the WEIRD ones (Henrich et al., 2010). This means our whole “scientific” understanding of the human animal is based on studying one specific, small, subgroup. Doesn’t that seem a little. . .weird?
At the very least, this reminds us to be cautious in applying findings from psychology studies to the human species at large. It also means that we need to better understand the similarities and differences between people in different cultures. For example, in terms of personality, one starting place would be to examine whether there are any important differences between the WEIRD and
everyone else.
Universals and Differences Across Cultures: The
Big Five
The Five Factor Model of personality centres around five personality dimensions: neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. However, because these factors were discovered by researchers working in WEIRD places—the United States, Canada, and Europe —it is possible that the Five Factor Model only accounts for personality in WEIRD populations and may not apply to the rest of the world.
To find out whether the Big Five traits are truly universal, an enormous team of psychologists (there were 127 authors on this single article) measured the Big Five dimensions in more than 17 000 people speaking 28 different languages and inhabiting 56 countries on 6 continents (they did not visit Antarctica). In all cultures that were studied, the Big Five factors were reliably found. Despite the many differences that may exist between cultures, the people in those cultures
do appear to share the same basic personality structures (McCrae et al., 2005; Schmitt et al., 2007). This is an incredible finding, suggesting that the basic systems in the human personality are, in a sense, deeper than culture. Although individual personalities differ enormously, the basic machinery of the human personality system seems universal.
Personality Structures in Different Cultures
The study described above is groundbreaking in its global scope, but a key methodological challenge remains. Because the Five Factor Model was originally created by performing a factor analysis of the personality adjectives in the English language, the kinds of questions that are asked on Big Five questionnaires are designed to measure the Big Five factors, and no others. Thus, when the scale is given to people from other cultures, the scale itself brings the biases of Western culture and the English language right along with it. What if other languages used different types of adjectives to describe
personality? What if other cultures had different personality traits than the ones that emerge in the West? Re-analyzing personality from different linguistic starting points might reveal new personality factors that lie outside of the Big Five.
Researchers have begun to address this limitation, analyzing personality structure using personality descriptors in other languages; this work has already
revealed unique personality factors not captured in the Big Five (Heine & Buchtel, 2009). For example, Cheung and colleagues (1996) examined indigenous Chinese personality traits, looking for patterns among the personality descriptors used in Chinese, rather than English. They found 26 new personality traits in total, and when they performed a factor-analysis on all the traits including these 26 new ones, they found a quite different structure from the Big Five.
Instead of five traits, these researchers found four: dependability, social potency, individualism, and interpersonal relatedness. The first three traits were very similar to three of the Big Five traits (neuroticism, extraversion, and agreeableness, respectively), but the fourth, interpersonal relatedness, was unique. Interpersonal relatedness is a combination of characteristics concerning social harmony, tradition, and an emphasis on one’s social relationships. This may reflect a distinct personality dimension in the Chinese psyche, emphasizing the more socially interdependent nature of the self in this culture.
Other researchers have added to our multicultural understanding of personality, analyzing the personality traits found in Filipino, Spanish, and Greek languages,
and seeking a more integrated cross-cultural theory of personality (Benet- Martinez & John, 1998; Church, 2001; Saucier et al., 2005). Each analysis has revealed new factors that seem to be independent of the Big Five.
Cross-cultural work on personality is still in its infancy, and clearly, many questions remain. At this point, most psychologists would agree that the Five Factor Model captures important and perhaps universal dimensions of personality, but also might miss important cultural- specific qualities that can only be understood by analyzing personality from that culture’s own perspective.
Comparing Personality Traits Between Nations
Despite the difficulties noted above, one important advantage of personality scales that have been translated into different languages is that psychologists can test for personality differences across cultures. Many such differences have been found. For example, consider the countries with the highest and lowest
averages on each of the Big Five traits in Table 12.3 (Schmitt et al., 2007). (Interestingly, Canada falls roughly in the middle in each case.)
Table 12.3 Cultural Differences in the Big Five Personality Traits Source: Based on data from Schmitt, D. P., Allik, J., McCrae, R. R., Benet-Martinez, V., et al. (2007). The geographic
distribution of Big Five personality traits: Patterns and profiles of human self-descriptions across 56 nations. Journal of Cross-
Cultural Psychology, 38, 173–212.
Highest Lowest
Extraversion Serbia, Croatia Bangladesh, France
Openness Chile, Belgium Hong Kong, Japan
Agreeableness Jordan, Democratic Republic
of the Congo
Japan, Lithuania
Conscientiousness Ethiopia, Democratic Republic
of the Congo
Japan, South Korea
Neuroticism Japan, Argentina Democratic Republic of the
Congo, Slovenia
Biopsychosocial Perspectives How Culture
Shapes Our Development: Cultural
Differences in the Self
During the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia, two gold-medal–winning athletes were interviewed about their success. In explaining her success during the race, Misty Hyman, who won the 200-metre butterfly for the United States, said, “I think I just stayed focused. It was time to show the world what I could do. I am just glad I was able to do it. I knew I could beat Suzy O’Neil, deep down in my heart I believed it, and I know this whole week the doubts kept creeping in, they were with me on the blocks, but I just said, ‘No, this is my night.’”
In contrast, Naoko Takahashi, after winning the marathon for Japan, said, “Here is the best coach in the world, the best manager in the world, and all of the people who support me—all of these things were getting together and became a gold medal. So I think I didn’t get it alone, not
only by myself” (Markus et al., 2006).
This striking example illustrates how people’s behaviour can be shaped by broad cultural factors. Misty Hyman, from the individualistic United States, seems to be more self-promoting, explaining her success as being due to her own characteristics, her willpower, and belief in herself. Naoko Takahashi, from collectivistic Japan, takes her moment of Olympic glory as an opportunity to highlight the ways in which she was assisted by so many people in her life, de-emphasizing her own contribution in favour of honouring others.
Whether a culture predominantly emphasizes individualism or collectivism has many effects on personality, affecting how people see themselves and how they behave in many situations. Researchers have found that when describing themselves, predominantly individualistic people use more personal adjectives (e.g., “I am extraverted”; “I have a good sense of humour”). Predominantly collectivistic people tend to describe themselves more relationally, in terms of their connections to other people (“I am a son”; “I am a sister”), and their affiliations with specific social groups (“I am Canadian”; “I am a Trekkie”).
This difference in self-definition results in differences in the stability of personality across different situations. The individualistic person is the
same across most situations, whereas the more collectivistic person feels that who you are depends on who you’re with; the self that you are emerges within a social context and is attuned to that context.
Perhaps because they define their self-concepts more rigidly, individualistic people are more likely to be defensive in specific ways. To the collectivistic person, the self is fluid and changeable from situation to situation; thus there is not the same need to defend a single specific self- concept. But to the individualist, the self is supposed to exist as a separate “thing,” one that persists from situation to situation, and as a result, individualists have a stronger need to maintain a positive view of their self-concepts. Individualists are likely to emphasize their positive qualities. And, as with Misty Hyman, when things turn out well for them, they take most of the credit themselves. On the other hand, if the individualist fails, they are pretty good at finding other circumstantial
factors to blame (Heine, 2003; Markus & Kitayama, 1991).
The influence of culture can even be seen in the brain. In one study
(Chiao et al., 2009), participants were put into fMRI scanners to monitor their brain activity while they made judgments about different sentences. In order to manipulate whether subjects were thinking of themselves in a more individualistic or collectivistic manner, researchers asked subjects to make different types of judgments about the sentences. For some sentences, they judged the degree to which it described them in general (individualistic-self task), whereas for others they judged how well it described them when they were with their mothers (collectivistic-self task). Amazingly, their brain scans were able to tell the difference between individualists and collectivists. In the brain, part of the medial prefrontal cortex is involved when processing information related to the self. This area was most active for individualistic participants when they were making judgments about themselves in general, whereas collectivists showed the greatest amount of activation in this area when making judgments about themselves in relation to their mothers. Thus, to individualists, the individualistic task was processed by their brains as most self-relevant, whereas for collectivists, it was the collectivistic task that was most self-relevant.
What do these differences really mean? Do they reflect actual personality differences between the people in those countries? Or could other things account for the findings? Many of the personality differences do seem puzzling. For example, why are Argentinians so neurotic, compared to people from the Democratic Republic of the Congo? Why are the Japanese so much less conscientious than Ethiopians? In fact, many of the findings in these large-scale
cross-cultural studies defy cultural stereotypes (Terracciano et al., 2005), and it is a huge challenge for researchers to understand whether or not these differences are real.
One striking cultural difference that researchers have struggled to understand is
also illustrated in Table 12.3 . Isn’t it interesting that a single country, Japan, ranked lowest of all countries on three out of the five traits (openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness)? Given the general desirability of these traits, that is a fairly critical evaluation of the Japanese personality! (The fact that they are among the most neurotic countries makes it seem even worse.) In fact, people from the entire South Asian part of the world rated their own personalities relatively negatively. Are these differences real? Is such a vast swath of humanity really so different from the rest of the world? It turns out that there may be a different explanation for at least some of the cultural differences found in personality studies. It is possible that people from different cultures have different response styles —characteristic ways of responding to questions; these response styles can be strongly influenced by cultural norms. For example, in one culture it may be more socially acceptable to say highly positive things about yourself, whereas in another culture the same behaviour may be considered rude or boastful. Indeed, researchers at the University of British Columbia have shown that there are such norms in South Asian cultures, discouraging people from emphasizing their strengths and successes, and instead encouraging
people to be modest, humble, even self-critical (Heine, 2003; Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Mezulis et al., 2004).
An important critique of cross-cultural research is that it may lead to an emphasis on how cultures differ from each other, and obscure the fact that there is so
much individual diversity within a culture that the average differences between
cultures may not be that important after all. Therefore, it is important not to over- emphasize small average differences between groups and unduly reinforce group-based stereotypes.
Consistent with this point, the authors of the huge study discussed earlier finally concluded that the differences found in average trait ratings in different cultures are not sufficiently strong to justify beliefs in national character. “No convincing evidence has demonstrated that beliefs about national character” have any basis
in fact, “despite their wide adoption and resistance to change” (Schmitt et al., 2007). Thus, the very researchers who are looking for cross-cultural differences in personality ended up concluding that these differences are so small that it is misleading to think that people in different cultures are “different types of people.”
Module 12.2a Quiz:
Culture and Personality
Know . . . 1. What does the WEIRD acronym refer to?
A. Psychologists’ preoccupation with abnormal personalities B. A single, specific group on which major perspectives and theories
of personality are based
C. A database that compiles personality profiles from people of all walks of life
D. The application of personality to the various cultures from East Asia
2. Psychologists have primarily relied on to measure personality traits in other cultures.
A. behavioural observations B. interviews C. the Cannon-Bard theory D. the Big Five trait theory
Analyze . . .
3. Results from applying the Big Five personality traits in other countries reveal that
A. people all over the world are identical in the patterns of their personality traits.
B. people all over the world are radically different in the patterns of their personality traits.
C. there are some cross-cultural differences as well as many similarities in the patterns of people’s personality traits.
D. the Big Five was not understood in other parts of the world because of language translation problems.
How Genes Affect Personality
In the first part of this module, we discussed cultural influences on personality. This topic would clearly fall on the “nurture” side of the nature–nurture continuum. In this section of the module, we will examine personality from a different perspective: genetics. We all know that we can inherit physical traits from our parents. But, can you be born with your mother’s sense of humour or your father’s agreeableness? And, is it possible to separate the contribution of your genes from that of your upbringing?
Twin Studies
Researchers attempting to tease apart the contributions made by our genes and our environments faced a key challenge, which was that families share not only genes, but also many environmental factors. For example, if you were to observe a behaviour pattern that runs in families, such as alcoholism or anxiety, you might be tempted to conclude that because of the strong family inclination toward this pattern, there must be genetic roots. But family members also often live in the same home, share many experiences together, and are exposed to many of the same stresses and other circumstances. How then do you know if the pattern you observe is due to the shared genes or the shared environments?
The use of twins as research subjects was a brilliant way of overcoming this
challenge (see Module 3.1 ). Comparing twins who were identical (monozygotic) to twins who were fraternal (dizygotic) allowed researchers to estimate the influence of genetic factors on personality. Research on the Big Five personality traits of twins has shown that identical twins show a stronger correlation for each personality trait than do fraternal twins. The correlations for identical twin pairs are approximately .50 for all five factors, significantly higher than the correlations for fraternal twin pairs (who average approximately .20). This implies that the increased similarity in the personalities of identical twins is due to their shared genes.
But you might ask, how do researchers know that it’s the increased genetic similarity of identical twins that is responsible for their similar personalities? Maybe identical twins also tend to share more similar environments than fraternal twins, and this is the reason for their personality similarity. Identical twins are often treated in very similar ways, especially during their younger and formative years. If this is true, then the strong correlations between identical twin pairs might be environmentally based.
An impressive line of research directly examines this question. The Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart located over 100 sets of twins and triplets who were raised in separate households, and compared them to those raised in the
same household. Amazingly, identical twins raised in different households are about as similar to each other as identical twins raised in the same household! In fact, fraternal twins who are raised in the same home are actually more different from each other than identical twins who are raised in completely different
families (Bouchard et al., 1990; Tellegen et al., 1998).
Other studies of adopted children support these findings. On average, the personalities of adoptive parents have no influence on the personality characteristics of their adopted children. Although it may be hard to believe, siblings who are adopted (i.e., not genetically related) and raised in the same
household are no more similar in personality than two people picked randomly off the street (Plomin & Caspi, 1999). The genetic influences on personality are strong indeed (see Module 3.1 for further discussion of the genetic
contributions to behaviour).
Paula Bernstein and Elyse Schein are identical twins who were separated at birth, and upon uniting at age 35 discovered they shared some uncanny similarities. They were editors for their high-school newspapers, chose to study film in university, sucked their fingers but not their thumbs as toddlers, have an odd habit of typing into the air, and share very similar tastes in books, among other similarities. Zak Brian/SIPA/Newscom
It is important to note that this does not mean that parents are incapable of influencing their children’s personality development. Obviously, parents who abuse their children, or on the positive side, parents who put extraordinary efforts into cultivating positive personality traits in their children, are likely to have an impact on their children’s personalities. Knowing that a trait is statistically associated with genetic factors tells you virtually nothing about the extent to which a specific person could be affected by a specific set of environmental conditions. Parents can, of course, have positive or negative influences on their children’s development, and it is important not to deemphasize this when examining biological and genetic studies.
One further challenge of this research is to move beyond estimating the overall
heritability of traits, and begin to uncover which specific genes are linked to personality outcomes. New advances in gene sequencing techniques and molecular genetics methods are allowing scientists to do just that.
Gerald Levey and Mark Newman are identical twins who were reared apart. When they eventually met they had many similarities—for example, both chose
the same profession, loved John Wayne movies and The Three Stooges, and had a fondness for professional wrestling. AP Images
Working the Scientific Literacy Model From Molecules to Personality
It’s pretty mind-blowing to know that who you are was determined to a fair degree before you were even born, by whatever genes you happened to inherit from your parents. Researchers are just beginning to piece together which specific genes influence which traits.
What do we know about specific genes and personality?
Although scientists have not identified a specific gene or genes involved in the expression of specific personality factors, such as neuroticism or agreeableness, they have discovered genes that code for specific brain chemicals that, in turn, are related to personality. For example, one of the genes that codes for serotonin activity has been found on human chromosome 17. Specifically, this gene codes for proteins that transport serotonin molecules within the tiny spaces (synapses) between nerve cells.
Many of our genes are polymorphic (poly = “multiple”; morph = “form”), meaning that there are different versions of the same gene that lead to different physical or behavioural characteristics. Two possible variations of the “serotonin transporter gene” have been identified: a short copy and a long copy.
How do scientists study genes and personality? To study genes and personality, one method is to compare responses on self-report questionnaires of people who have inherited different copies of a specific gene. People who inherit short copies of the serotonin transporter gene from one or both parents seem predisposed to anxiety, shyness, and experiencing negative emotional reactions in interpersonal situations
(Battaglia et al., 2005; Lesch et al., 1996). However, other researchers have suggested that these differences may depend on which of the many different varieties of self-report
questionnaires are used (Schinka et al., 2004).
Another method for studying genes and personality is to conduct experiments and compare the responses of people with different copies of a gene. In one study, participants provided a hair sample so researchers could extract DNA to determine which combination of serotonin transporter genes they had inherited. The participants completed a task that monitored their attentional focus to pictures of positive (e.g., a smiling infant), negative (a black widow spider), or neutral (a kitchen table) stimuli. Previous research has shown that people who have problems with anxiety
focus their attention on threatening stimuli more than non-anxious
people (Bar-Haim et al., 2007). Researchers found that participants who had inherited two long copies of the gene were biased toward looking at positive images more frequently and for longer periods of time. On the other hand, people who inherited one or two short versions of the gene spent more time looking at
negative images (Figure 12.4 ; Fox et al., 2009). It seems that inheriting short copies of this gene increases anxiety levels in general, and seems to steer people toward giving excessive attention to negative and threatening information.
Figure 12.4 Genes, Serotonin, and Personality
People who inherit two copies of the long version of the serotonin transporter gene fixate on positive images and avoid looking at negative images. People who inherit the short version of this gene are not biased toward attending to positive imagery.
Can we critically evaluate this evidence?
It is important to keep in mind that, in most cases, there is no single gene causing a single outcome in a person. Most phenomena are understood to be caused by multiple genes interacting with the environment. At this point the general consensus is that a vast number of genes, each of which has only a very small effect, account for individual differences in
personality (Terracciano et al., 2010). It is also important to note that these are correlational studies, and inferring causality from such data is highly problematic.
Why is this relevant? Knowledge about how genes and personality are related can help psychologists identify risk factors for developing mental disorders. As we will see in other parts of this text, genetic studies of personality help us better understand the biological basis of psychological disorders such as anxiety and depression. This work raises some interesting possibilities, such as the potential to screen individuals to assess their risk of developing a disorder. In turn, at-risk individuals might be better helped with early detection and treatment. Also, knowing about the genetic underpinnings of personality is highly informative to theorists seeking to understand how our personality traits, and the variability of traits across cultures, evolved in the first place.
Module 12.2b Quiz:
How Genes Affect Personality
Know . . . 1. Researchers have found that short copies of the transporter
genes make people predisposed to anxiety, shyness, and experiencing negative emotional reactions in interpersonal situations.
A. serotonin B. dopamine C. norepinephrine D. glutamate
Understand . . . 2. Even when identical twins are reared apart, they still tend to be very
similar in personality. How is this strong evidence that genes contribute to personality?
A. Identical twins who were reared apart were most likely treated in very similar ways.
B. The similarities remain, even though there were probably significant differences in how the siblings were raised.
C. There are fewer similarities when twins are reared together. D. Actually, identical twins who are raised apart show very little
similarity.
3. Which of the following statements best describes what psychologists now know about the genetic basis of personality?
A. Hundreds of genes have been identified that are directly linked to specific personality traits.
B. Technology is not sophisticated enough to link genes and personality characteristics.
C. Some genes have been identified that are related to certain aspects of personality function.
D. Genes do not contribute to personality characteristics.
The Role of Evolution in Personality
Evolutionary psychologists emphasize that our personality structures are built right into our species because they conferred selective advantages to humans possessing certain traits. But the human species is related to other species as well, and so one would expect that we may share at least some aspects of our
personalities with other species.
Animal Behaviour: The Evolutionary Roots of
Personality
One compelling argument for the usefulness of the evolutionary perspective on personality is the presence of personality traits in numerous nonhuman species.
For example, scientists have studied one particular species of bird (Parus major) that lives in Europe and Asia. These birds display two different patterns of behaviour when they encounter new environments, corresponding to a “fast- exploring” or “slow-exploring” personality type. The fast-exploring types are aggressive and bold in their exploration of new environments, and tend to rely more on routine ways of responding to the environment rather than being responsive to external cues. The slow-exploring types are passive, shy when confronted with new environments, and more responsive to the external environment, changing their behaviour more readily to suit changes in the environment. These two personality types are known to have a strong genetic basis. Which of the two personality types is adaptive depends on what kind of year the birds are having. If there are limited resources, aggressive, fast- exploring females, and timid, slow-exploring males have greater reproductive success. In years where resources are plentiful, it is the opposite—slow- exploring females and fast-exploring males have greater success. There are complex reasons why males and females have personality factors that are oppositely adaptive to the environment, but the important point is that the basic personality dimension of aggressiveness vs. passivity is represented in these birds and has been clearly tied to the birds’ adaptive advantage in different
environments (Dingemanse et al., 2004).
The suggestion that animals have personalities may not strike you as all that surprising. Many people who have had close and extended experience with animals, from farmers to pet owners, would say that animals have personalities. For example, dog lovers don’t feel that their pet is a totally incomprehensible beast; instead, they attribute qualities, emotions, and personality quirks that are very “human” to the beloved animal. This may merely illustrate our tendency to
anthropomorphize the living world, seeing other species through our own egocentric lens, but it may also reflect our shared genetic heritage with other species.
Researchers who wish to study animal personalities face a daunting task, particularly considering that nonhuman animals are usually not very adept at filling out personality scales. To overcome this problem, one approach for measuring the Big Five factors in animals was for individuals who are familiar with the animals to rate their behaviours according to the five factors. Typically, observers strongly agree on their ratings of extraversion and neuroticism in
animals (Gosling, 2001). In fact, several of the Big Five personality traits have been found in a rich diversity of species—such as rhinos, primates, hedgehogs,
and even ants (Gosling, 2001)! In one study of chimpanzees, our closest primate relatives, a list of adjectives was taken from the Big Five test and people who were familiar with the chimpanzee subjects rated how well the adjectives applied to each chimp on a scale of 1 to 7. Of the Big Five traits, extraversion,
conscientiousness, and agreeableness were reliably found in the chimps (Weiss et al., 2007).
Psychologists are finding that measures of human personality are applicable to diverse species such as hyenas, octopuses, and chimpanzees, among many others. Poeticpenguin/Shutterstock
Rena Schild/Shutterstock
Michael Nichols/National Geographic/ Getty Images
The presence of basic personality dimensions may be extremely widespread in
the living world; some researchers even argue you do not need a backbone to have a personality. Researchers at the University of Lethbridge, Alberta, have shown that octopuses show stable individual differences in measures of activity,
reactivity, and avoidance (Mather & Anderson, 1993).
Why There are So Many Different Personalities:
The Evolutionary Explanation
David Zuroff of McGill University argues that evolutionary perspectives can make a major contribution to our understanding of personality, helping us to
understand why we acquired the specific traits that we did (Zuroff et al., 2010). This question is left largely unaddressed by most personality theories, which focus on content (e.g., What personality traits are there?), rather than on process (e.g., Why do we have these traits in the first place? What functions do they serve?).
Evolutionary perspectives can help us to understand why humans have evolved the particular personality traits that we have. To the extent that the Big Five traits are built right into our biology, these traits must have been selected for by being adaptive in past evolutionary epochs, helping to promote our survival and reproductive success.
For example, individuals high in extraversion would be more likely to rise in social hierarchies, playing leadership and social networking roles in a community; on the other hand, extraverts tend to be risk takers and sensation seekers, and it would therefore be desirable to offset these qualities with a healthy proportion of introverts in a group.
People high in conscientiousness would be reliable and dependable, and others would learn to count on them to get things done, clearly desirable qualities in a mate. However, the person low in conscientiousness may be an attractive partner to mate with for other reasons, such as their spontaneity and willingness to not always take life too seriously.
People low in neuroticism would be the emotional stalwarts of the community, the people who didn’t crack under pressure but kept a level head and could be counted on in crises. However, being high in neuroticism could pay off at times; for example, groups may benefit from having some highly neurotic people around, because they would be more attuned to danger and act as a voice of caution to keep others from making dangerous decisions.
People high in agreeableness would be the friends who are there for you when you need them, and they would generally help to promote harmony and solidarity as groups work together on larger projects; whereas those low in agreeableness may be useful for providing a critical perspective and ensuring that the group doesn’t make rash decisions.
People high in openness would be imaginative and creative, helping to build bridges between members of different subgroups in the community, and challenging ideas so that the community doesn’t rigidify into dogma and closed- mindedness. On the other hand, those low in openness may be useful for preserving traditions and helping to identify a coherent sense of identity within the community.
As you can see, being either high or low in each Big Five trait could be desirable, depending on the situation. Thus, the complex blends of personality types across society evolved because different traits were desirable in different circumstances. Just as there are different niches to which animal species adapt in an ecosystem, there are different social niches to which people can adapt in society. The extravert and the introvert, the neurotic and the secure, the conscientious and the careless gravitate toward the respective niches they best fill.
Myths in Mind Men Are from Mars, Women
Are from Venus Much is often made about apparent differences in how men and women think and behave. This comparison can sometimes get stretched pretty
far, such as the implication inherent in the title of the 1992 self-help book
Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus (Gray, 1992). The notion that men and women may as well be from different planets is strongly reinforced by the popular media.
To what extent does science back up this hypothesis when it comes to personality? On the one hand, there is strong evidence that men and women differ on their Big Five personality ratings. Women generally report higher levels of extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and neuroticism than men. This finding has been noted in comparisons
made across dozens of cultures (Schmitt et al., 2008). On the other hand, these gender differences are quite small, and are vastly
overwhelmed by the variability within each gender. In other words, there are a lot of men who seem like they’re from Venus, and a lot of women who seem like they’re from Mars. So, even though there is a gender difference in personality, it is so small as to hardly allow the characterization that men and women are fundamentally different from each other.
In an interesting twist, however, this research also found that the gender differences are related to economic factors. Specifically, the countries
showing the largest gender differences in personality also have greater access to resources such as health care, education, and wealth. Men and women in countries with fewer social and economic resources tend to be more similar in their self-reported personality scores. This phenomenon may occur because a lack of resources tends to constrain the behaviours and social roles of individuals, thus making people more similar to each other at the expense of their personal individuation. On the other hand, abundant prosperity opens up more opportunities for
personal expression and allows individual differences to flourish (Schmitt et al., 2008).
The conclusion seems to be that men and women do have different personalities, on average. Nevertheless, the differences are so small that Mars and Venus must be pretty similar places, so to speak. A good title might sell a lot of books, but does little to inform the general public about
what scientific studies truly reveal about human behaviour.
Given that specific traits have certain strengths and weaknesses, it seems likely that the different traits evolved because a mixture of traits with complementary strengths and weaknesses would be advantageous at the group level, if not necessarily at the individual level. In other words, to understand why we evolved the traits that we did, we have to consider traits not operating in isolation but, instead, operating at a more communal level.
Module 12.2c Quiz:
The Role of Evolution in Personality
Apply . . . 1. What is an important piece of evidence supporting an evolutionary basis
of personality?
A. Changes in personality can be seen over generations. B. Personality traits are stable in the sense that they are common
among humans and can be found in nonhuman species.
C. Personality traits are not stable and cannot be found in nonhuman species.
D. No valid evidence supports an evolutionary approach to personality.
Analyze . . . 2. According to evolutionary psychologists, there is great diversity in human
personality because
A. only five personality traits could be useful for our species’ survival.
B. different traits are most adaptive in different situations. C. a person with a diverse personality is best able to adapt to
different situations.
D. some personality traits are most adaptive for mating, whereas others are more adaptive for survival.
3. Which of the following statements best summarizes personality differences between men and women?
A. Averages of some traits such as extraversion and neuroticism tend to differ between men and women, but these differences are very small.
B. Males and females inherit separate sets of genes that cause their differences in personality.
C. Research shows that men and women really do not differ in personality.
D. Males are generally agreeable, whereas women are generally conscientious.
In the final section of this module, we examine biological explanations for our personality traits. Can differences in the volume of brain structures or the activity of brain regions explain, at least in part, why personalities vary?
The Brain and Personality
Modern biological approaches for investigating the brain and behaviour build on many ancient traditions of medicine that connected the mind to the body and sought to understand the person in terms of bodily processes. For much of the
past 2000 years, Western medicine was guided by the theory of humourism , which explained both physical illnesses and disorders of personality as resulting from imbalances in key fluids in the body—the four “humours.” In the late 1700s and into the 1800s, early psychologists promoted phrenology —the theory that personality characteristics could be assessed by carefully measuring the shape of the skull. However, these early biological approaches have long since fallen out of fashion, and the field has made major strides in understanding actual biological systems that are involved in personality processes.
Extraversion and Arousal
A big step forward occurred in the mid-20th century, when researchers began
convincingly linking personality characteristics with specific brain systems. One
of the most influential pioneers in this field, Hans Eysenck (1967), proposed an arousal theory of extraversion , arguing that extraversion is determined by people’s threshold for arousal; according to this theory, people high in extraversion (i.e., extraverts) have a higher threshold for arousal than people low in extraversion (i.e., introverts). As a result, extraverts generally seek greater amounts of stimulation, whereas introverts seek to limit the amount of stimulation they experience so as to not become overwhelmed with excessive arousal. One
brain system, the ascending reticular activating system (ARAS) , plays a central role in controlling this arousal response. Research on Eysenck’s ideas has demonstrated that extraverts do have less reactive ARASs compared to introverts. Put simply, for a given “kick,” introverts have a stronger response, which is why introverts tend to avoid excessive stimulation, whereas extraverts tend to seek it out.
Another influential model of the brain–personality relationship was proposed by
Jeffrey Gray, whose approach/inhibition model of motivation (Gray, 1991) describes two major brain systems for processing rewards and punishments: the behavioural activation system and the behavioural inhibition system.
The behavioural activation system (BAS) is a “GO” system, arousing the person to action in the pursuit of desired goals. This system is responsive to rewards and fairly unresponsive to possible negative consequences; greater BAS activation therefore is associated with greater positive emotional responses
and approach motivation. The other system, the behavioural inhibition system (BIS) , is more of a “danger” system, motivating the person to action in order to avoid punishments or other negative outcomes. The BIS is therefore associated with greater negative emotional responses and avoidance motivation.
Phrenologists believed that different personality traits were housed in different regions of the brain. Classic Image/Alamy Stock Photo
As you might expect, several of the Big Five factors are correlated with activation of the BIS/BAS systems. The most consistent finding is that extraversion is especially related to BAS activation, whereas neuroticism is related to BIS
activation (e.g., Gomez et al., 2000). This evidence is beginning to build at
different levels of analysis, but it takes a long time for such complex studies to accumulate. However, just considering the link between extraversion and BAS activation, we can see data focused on at least three different levels of analysis: behavioural, neurochemical, and emotional. For example, extraverts tend to act impulsively when presented with the possibility of rewards, even ignoring the risk
of punishment (Patterson & Newman, 1993). Extraverts show a stronger dopamine response to rewarding stimuli (Depue & Collins, 1999). And, extraverts tend to experience more positive emotions in a range of situations
(Ashby et al., 1999; Lucas et al., 2000). Thus, a trait measure of extraversion reflects the functioning of many different systems, providing a great example of the integration of science across many different areas of study.
Contemporary Research: Images of Personality in
the Brain
Modern-day researchers use brain-imaging technology to test for relationships between personality and the brain. Neuroscientists have tested whether each of the Big Five personality traits is associated with a different brain region, and whether these regions correspond to the behaviours associated with these traits. The general conclusion has been that indeed, there are many relationships between personality traits and the functioning of specific brain areas, although this research is in its infancy and we have a long way to go before we can confidently discuss “personality in the brain.” However, we can discuss some preliminary findings of this line of inquiry.
Extraversion:
Extraverts have a larger medial orbitofrontal cortex (part of the prefrontal cortex;
DeYoung et al., 2010), and generally show less activation in the amygdala (Canli et al., 2002). The medial orbitofrontal cortex is involved in processing reward, which is consistent with extraverts’ greater reward sensitivity (i.e., strong BAS). The amygdala, on the other hand, is involved in processing novelty, danger, and fear, which extraverts tend to pay less attention to (i.e., weak BIS),
hence their under-active amygdalae (see Figure 12.5 ).
Figure 12.5 Measuring Personality and Brain Anatomy People’s self-ratings of the Big Five traits correspond to their brain volume in specific regions. Here we see two (among several) regions of the brain where size is positively correlated with ratings of conscientiousness and extraversion
(DeYoung et al., 2010). Source: Based loosely on DeYoung, C. G., Hirsh, J. B., Shane, M. S., Papademetris, X., Rajeevan, N., & Gray, J. R. (2010).
Testing predictions from personality neuroscience: Brain structure and the big five. Psychological Science, 21 (6), 820–828.
Neuroticism:
Neuroticism is associated with the size of various brain areas, such as a smaller dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, a smaller hippocampus, and a larger mid-
cingulate gyrus (an area right above the corpus callosum; DeYoung et al., 2010). Each of these areas is involved in abilities that are central to neuroticism. The dorsomedial prefrontal cortex is involved in controlling emotions (Ochsner & Gross, 2005), the hippocampus in controlling obsessive negative thinking (Gray & McNaughton, 2000), and the mid-cingulate gyrus in detecting errors and perceiving pain—whether physical or emotional pain (Carter et al., 1998; Eisenberger & Lieberman, 2004). These are the kinds of processes that define highly neurotic people. They have difficulty controlling their emotions, often fall prey to obsessive negative thinking, and are highly sensitive when they make mistakes or feel pain.
Agreeableness:
People high in agreeableness show less brain volume in an area called the left
superior temporal sulcus (DeYoung et al., 2010), which is activated when one is interpreting another person’s actions or intentions (Pelphrey & Morris, 2006). They also show greater volume in an area called the posterior cingulate cortex,
which is involved in empathy and perspective-taking (DeYoung et al., 2010). These brain areas match the tendency for people high in agreeableness to be more socially attuned and to have more empathy for others.
Conscientiousness:
People high in this trait have larger brain volume in the middle frontal gyrus in the
left prefrontal cortex (DeYoung et al., 2010), which is involved in working memory processes and in carrying out actions that you have planned. These functions are implicated in effective self-control, which is a key strength of the highly conscientious person.
Openness to Experience:
Individuals high in openness to experience have been shown to have greater activation in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which is involved in creativity and intelligence, as well as other brain systems involved in the integration of the self
and the environment (Adelstein et al., 2011). These systems reflect the tendencies for people high in openness to be creative, integrative thinkers.
Although the ability to link brain regions to personality processes at such a refined level has only become possible recently, neuroscientists are beginning to find brain regions that differ reliably between people with different personality
traits. This does not mean that these brain differences cause the personality differences, but it does suggest that these brain regions are involved in serving neurological functions that are related to personality processes at some level. The causal connections might be indirect and highly varied, challenging us with incredible complexity, both of personality itself but also complexity of the neurological architecture of the brain. This complexity reminds us that in most cases, there will be no specific brain area involved uniquely in a personality trait; for example, there is no “centre of extraversion” in the brain. Any trait plays itself
out through many different thoughts, feelings, and behaviours, each of which involves many different brain systems. What ends up manifesting as a stable pattern that we identify as a personality trait therefore represents patterns of activation across many different brain systems.
So we may never be able to point at a single region (or even a few regions) and declare it to be the centre of any single personality trait. That said, we have come a long way from the days when personality was described in terms of the four humours of blood, phlegm, and black and yellow bile.
Module 12.2d Quiz: The Brain and Personality
Know . . . 1. An outdated approach claiming that behaviour and personality were
based on the sizes of various regions of the skull surface was called
A. magnetic resonance imaging. B. alchemy. C. phrenology. D. humourism.
2. Hans Eysenck believed that extraversion was tied most closely to the functioning of the
A. limbic system. B. parasympathetic nervous system. C. ascending reticular activating system. D. amygdala.
Apply . . . 3. You are looking at an fMRI brain scan of a subject in a research study.
The scan shows that the person generally has greater activation in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and less activation in the amygdala. Based on this information, what guess would you make about the person’s personality profile?
A. Low on extraversion, high on conscientiousness
B. High on openness to experience, high on extraversion C. Low in neuroticism, high on extraversion D. Low in neuroticism, high on conscientiousness
Module 12.2 Summary
arousal theory of extraversion
ascending reticular activating system (ARAS)
behavioural activation system (BAS)
behavioural inhibition system (BIS)
humourism
phrenology
response styles
Evolutionary psychologists theorize that personality traits evolved because they solved environmental and social problems encountered by our distant ancestors. Although this hypothesis is difficult to test directly, different sources of evidence lend support to it. The widespread occurrence of these personality traits among different species indicates that they are adaptive.
Although extraversion is commonly interpreted to indicate how sociable and friendly people are, it is more fundamentally related to how reactive people are to stimulation. Highly extraverted people have less reactive ascending reticular activating systems (ARAS), which means that they don’t get as big of a “kick” out of a given level of stimulation; this causes them to prefer more stimulating
Know . . . the key terminology associated with cultural and biological approaches to personality.
12.2a
Understand . . . how evolutionary theories explain personality.12.2b
Apply . . . your knowledge to understand how arousal is related to extraversion.
12.2c
environments, relative to introverts, who have more reactive ARASs, and therefore prefer lower levels of stimulation so that they do not feel overwhelmed.
Claims of major sex differences in personality are sometimes made to support popular-book sales. In reality, the general consensus in psychological science is that males and females are more alike than different when it comes to personality. Both, of course, share common personality dimensions. Although females tend to be, on average, more conscientious, agreeable, extraverted, and neurotic than males, these differences are very small, and there is no evidence to support claims that men and women are fundamentally different in personality.
Heritability studies show that personality traits are substantially predicted by genetic variation. Studies of twins and adopted children also back this up, showing that identical twins are far more similar in personality than fraternal twins, and that the home in which people grow up has much less influence over their personalities than the genes they inherited from their biological parents. However, despite this evidence for genetic influences on personality, one cannot conclude that personality is “hard wired” and therefore unchangeable. Personality emerges through the interaction of genes and the environment; thus, a given genetic make-up can express itself differently in different environments.
Analyze . . . claims that males and females have fundamentally different personalities.
12.2d
Analyze . . . the genetic basis of personality.12.2e
Module 12.3 Psychodynamic and Humanistic Approaches to Personality
blas/Fotolia
Learning Objectives
Know . . . the key terminology related to the psychodynamic and humanistic approaches to personality. Understand . . . how people use defence mechanisms to cope with
12.3a
12.3b
Abraham Maslow, who was introduced in Module 11.3 , was fascinated by people who actually live up to their potential. Many of us want to follow today’s pop-culture slogans to “live for the moment,” “be all that you can be,” and “do one thing every day that scares you”—but somehow, most of us never quite get around to it. Perhaps you’ve experienced that nagging feeling that life is passing you by and the epic adventure you thought your life was going to be is somehow more mundane than you’d hoped? Apparently, this doesn’t happen to everybody; some people really do seem to live inspiring and fulfilling lives, and these were the personalities that Maslow wanted to understand.
In striking contrast to much of the cynicism of the 20th century, Maslow believed that although we have the capacity for great evil, at the very foundation of our being we are inherently good. He argued that the more we open ourselves to our inherent goodness, the more we will see reality clearly, rather than through our biases; the more we will be empowered and able to confront life courageously, rather than shrinking from challenges because of our insecurities; and the more we can focus on helping others rather than tending to our own needs and wants. The end result of pursuing personal growth is to become fully, vibrantly alive.
“Laboring under the effects of deficiency motivation is like looking at the world through a clouded lens, and removing those effects is like replacing the clouded lens with a clear one. Self-actualizing persons’ contact with reality is simply more direct. And along with this unfiltered, unmediated directness of their contact with reality comes also a vastly heightened
conflicting thoughts and feelings. Understand . . . the developmental stages Freud used to explain the origins of personality. Apply . . . both psychodynamic and humanistic perspectives to explain personality. Analyze . . . whether projective tests are valid measures of personality. Analyze . . . the strengths and weaknesses of psychodynamic perspectives.
12.3c
12.3d
12.3e 12.3f
ability to appreciate again and again, freshly and naively, the basic goods of life, with awe, pleasure, wonder, and even ecstasy, however stale
those experiences may have become for others.” (Maslow, 1968)
Is it possible to live such a life? Maslow thought so, and personality researchers are still following his call and trying to decipher the magic ingredients that allow some people to truly thrive in life.
Focus Questions
1. How do the psychodynamic and humanistic approaches give you insight into your own personality?
2. How do people use psychological defences to protect themselves from emotionally troubling events?
Maslow hoped that his work would help people learn how to cultivate these qualities within themselves. His optimistic vision of human nature was a major break from the personality psychology of the day, which largely grew out of a Freudian psychodynamic perspective. As we discuss below, to the Freudians, personality was a battleground between opposing forces in the psyche, as people struggled to defend themselves against the negativity that loomed in their unconscious. In contrast, Maslow and the humanists explored a positive, growth- oriented side to personality that we need to fully appreciate in order to have a more complete picture of the human personality.
Although neither Freudian psychoanalysis nor Maslow’s humanistic theories have retained their once-prominent positions in psychology, they remain highly influential approaches in society at large, and have inspired and guided generations of people to live their lives more fully.
The Psychodynamic Perspective
As one of the best known and most influential psychologists of all time, Sigmund Freud often does not get the respect you might think he would deserve. Many of his theories have not stood the test of time and are now largely ignored. Many of his theories are difficult or impossible to integrate with more modern approaches, such as social-cognitive and neuroscience perspectives. Indeed, some of his theories are even regarded as ridiculous by many people (e.g., the Oedipus complex, discussed later in this module). Freud was definitely a colourful character. He was a passionate user and advocate of cocaine before its addictive and destructive properties were known. He was rumoured to have been a tyrant towards his followers, allowing people to express little dissent from his views. Freud has been critiqued as having an obsession with sex, as having created unfalsifiable and therefore unscientific theories, and as using only a limited cross-section of humanity (mostly women seeking counselling in Victorian-era Europe) upon which to base rather grand and sweeping theories about human nature.
However, despite the criticisms, Freud was a pioneer in the study of personality and the treatment of psychological disorders. He laid much of the foundation for our basic understanding of consciousness, which is still with us today, as are many of his key insights. When a drug addict admits to being “in denial” of his addiction, an abuse survivor talks about how she “repressed” her memories and feelings for many years, or someone accuses you of “projecting” your anger onto other people, they are displaying Freud’s ideas.
Interestingly, Freud was not trained in psychology, but was instead a neurologist. The launch of his scientific career was anything but glamorous; he spent many hours peering through microscopes at tissue samples, searching for the elusive testicles of the male eel, which had not yet been discovered. Freud’s extraordinary attention to detail, along with the unwitting cooperation of many hundreds of eels, led him to eventually make the discovery. Which might make you ask, what kind of person exhaustively searches for eel testicles? No doubt, Freudian theorists would have an interesting answer to that question.
After leaving his scientific career to be trained as a physician, Freud began to accept clients who sought his help for psychological difficulties. Initially, Freud
believed that their issues could be resolved through investigating their physiology and isolating the biological factors that contributed to their problems. However, after examining some of his patients, he realized that their emotional struggles often could not be understood at the physiological level; instead, he had to delve into the mysterious depths of the mind. This led him to begin trying to understand the personalities of his patients and the psychological dynamics that led to the problems they were experiencing.
Over time, his observations and ideas coalesced into his psychodynamic theory, which isn’t really a “theory” at all, but rather an evolving family of different theories and ideas that share many key features, which we discuss in this
module (also, see Westen, 1998).
Assumptions of Psychodynamic Theories
A universal assumption of psychodynamic theories is that personality and behaviour are shaped by powerful forces in consciousness, a great deal of which is hidden from our awareness in the mysterious unconscious. By emphasizing the unconscious, Freud threw into doubt many of our common feelings and beliefs. For example, we like to feel like we are in control of ourselves and our behaviour reflects conscious choices that we make. We believe that we know why we do the things we do—that our behaviour makes sense to us. We also like to believe that when we do something embarrassing, immoral, or just plain stupid, that we were somehow “out of control” or that it was a mistake.
From a psychodynamic perspective, however, there are no mistakes, and we have very little control over ourselves and remarkably little insight into the reasons for our own behaviours. Everything we think, feel, and do results from psychological dynamics that are so deeply buried in our unconscious that we have no direct access to them; our mind is a “black box,” even to ourselves.
To understand the implications of Freud’s psychodynamic theory, we will explore its key concepts and how they apply to personality psychology.
Unconscious Processes and Psychodynamics
Freud grounded his theories on a model of consciousness that distinguished between different levels of mental life, most importantly between the conscious
mind and the unconscious. The conscious mind is your current awareness, containing everything you are aware of right now. The unconscious mind is a much more vast and powerful but inaccessible part of your consciousness, operating without your conscious endorsement or will to influence and guide your behaviours. The unconscious mind houses your full lifetime of memories and experiences, including those that you can no longer bring into conscious awareness, such as emotional patterns that were created in early childhood or even infancy. It also contains your preferences and desires, which can influence you in ways that may be obvious, or in ways so subtle that you are not even aware of them. The relationship between these two levels of consciousness is
often described using an iceberg metaphor of consciousness (Figure 12.6 ). With icebergs, the part you can see above the surface is a small fraction of the entire iceberg, while most of its bulk lurks beneath the surface. Similarly, the conscious mind is a small fraction of the entire psyche, most of which lurks beneath the surface of our awareness in the depths of the unconscious.
Figure 12.6 The Freudian Structure of Personality A popular depiction of how Freud viewed personality features an iceberg, with the unconscious mind residing below the surface and conscious awareness at only the tip of the iceberg. The id is completely submerged, whereas the ego and the superego operate at both unconscious and conscious levels. Source: Lilienfeld, Scott O.; Lynn, Steven J; Namy, Laura L.; Woolf, Nancy J., Psychology: From Inquiry to Understanding,
2nd Ed., ©2011, pp.546. Reprinted and Electronically reproduced by permission of Pearson Education, Inc., New York, NY.
The mysterious, vast, inaccessible unconscious is viewed as the primary driver of our behaviours, controlling us in countless ways. Even seemingly trivial behaviours, such as slips of the tongue, were argued to reflect the workings of the unconscious. In fact, these slips, famously called “Freudian slips,” are very useful to the observant person, because they offer a glimpse into the unconscious. When people make a Freudian slip, their conscious mind intends to say something appropriate to the circumstances, but their unconscious mind leads them to say what they were “really thinking.” As the classic psychologist joke goes, “The definition of a Freudian slip: when you mean to say one thing but
you end up saying a-mother.”
Freud believed fervently in the value of these “psychopathologies of everyday life” and developed several techniques that psychoanalysts could employ to use such small clues to gain access into the netherworld of the unconscious. (We revisit this later in this module.) Freud and other psychoanalysts argued that much of what manifests as personality reflects patterns that emerge as people attempt to resolve conflicts between their conscious and unconscious minds.
The Structure of Personality
Have you ever done something you knew at the time was wrong? Like eating that brownie when you knew you shouldn’t? Losing your temper? Hooking up with that attractive person even though they have a boyfriend or girlfriend (or you do)? To explain this type of all-too-common conflict, Freud hypothesized that the human psyche consists of three basic structures, which are often in conflict with
each other: the id, the ego, and the superego (Figure 12.6 ).
The id represents a collection of basic biological drives, including those directed toward sex and aggression. Freud believed the id was fuelled by an energy called libido. Although this term is more commonly used in reference to sexual energy, the libido also controls other biological urges such as hunger. The
id operates according to the pleasure principle, motivating people to seek out experiences that bring pleasure, with little regard for the appropriateness or consequences of their realization. Because the id represents our basic animal desires, it is present right from birth and is the predominant force controlling our actions in the earliest stages of our lives. The id gets us into trouble though, and increasingly so as we get older and society frowns on some of the unrestrained urges of our lusty animal selves. Because society imposes constraints on our behaviour, the id must be restrained from its animal nature; and that is where the ego and superego come into play.
The superego is comprised of our values and moral standards. Our superego tells us what we ought to do, whereas the id tells us what our animal body wants to do. Freud believed that the superego forms over time as we become
socialized into our family and larger community and we are taught the values and norms of our society. The superego represents a process of internalization, through which we adopt the values and standards of others and make them our own, and consequently, we feel good or bad about ourselves based on whether we think we are being “good” or “bad.” When we behave immorally, the superego chastises us, similarly to how our parents may have done, thereby encouraging us to “do the right thing.”
In between the devilish, indulgent id and the angelic, puritanical superego sits
the beleaguered ego , the decision maker, frequently under tension, trying to reconcile the opposing urges of the id and superego. The ego has to be plugged into reality; if it listened to the id all the time, we would be social deviants, instantly gratifying ourselves at every turn, but if it listened to the superego all the time, we would cut ourselves off from much of our raw passion and zest for life. The ego seeks to balance the two forces, operating according to what Freud
called the reality principle. The id, ego, and superego are in constant tension, and it is this tension that gives rise to personality in two key ways.
First, different people’s personalities may reflect differences in the relative strengths of their id, ego, and superego. You can easily imagine a person guided by an extremely strong superego versus a person guided by an extremely strong id. Indeed, these would likely be two completely different types of people. In this deep, structural sense, individuals’ personalities are patterned by their own particular blend of ego, id, and superego. Each person’s unique combination of biology (id), upbringing and sociocultural circumstances (superego), and their uniquely personal awareness and will (ego), ends up developing into their personality.
The second key dynamic that generates much of personality is how one reacts to anxiety. Anxiety plays a huge role in psychodynamic thought, because anxiety is the experiential (what we feel) result of the tension between the id, ego, and superego. When these systems are out of balance, we experience the deprivation of one system as a kind of basic anxiety. This drives negative thoughts and feelings, which ideally would serve as messages to us—signals that “something is wrong; this system is not in harmony.”
Anxiety can be about something huge and overwhelming (e.g., having abuse occur in one’s family) or about something mundane and seemingly trivial (e.g., wearing the wrong thing to a party), but it’s important to note that in either case, the anxiety itself has a kind of life of its own; for example, we can experience truly crushing and debilitating anxiety about something that others would think was silly (e.g., wearing the wrong thing to a party), whereas people can, through psychological defences (as we discuss shortly), defend themselves against even profound anxiety (such as being unwilling to face the reality of abuse occurring in one’s family).
According to Freud, the ego engages in anxiety-defence throughout the day. From worrying about failing, to how we look, to whether someone likes us, to how something we did will be perceived by other people, we feel anxiety. We could wonder whether we made a good decision, feel guilty, wonder if we are losing our looks or our charm as we age, or deal with basically an infinite variety of potential things to worry about and feel badly about. Dealing with this constant drama is the job of the ego. And of course, there is its classic job, which is to figure out what to do when part of us wants to do the bad thing (whatever that may be), and part of us is scared or feels ashamed or otherwise knows we “shouldn’t” do the bad thing.
It’s easy to feel a bit sorry for the ego. Sure, it gets to be in control a lot of the time, but it also never really gets a break, always having to be on the job to keep us from becoming overwhelmed by anxiety. From Freud’s perspective, consciousness is a constant battleground for the ego, negotiating between the id and superego, while also protecting itself from countless sources of anxiety.
Defence Mechanisms
Oftentimes, the ego is unable to resolve the anxieties that plague it. Instead, it focuses merely on protecting itself from excessive anxiety, seeking some way of minimizing or avoiding the negativity it is experiencing. Imagine a young child caught between Mom and Dad screaming at each other. Having no way to resolve their conflict, he plugs his ears and hides in the closet. The child can’t
resolve the negativity, so he tries to escape it. This is what the ego does when it
employs its defence mechanisms , unconscious strategies the ego uses to reduce or avoid anxiety (Freud, 1936; see Table 12.4 ). In fact, the literal acts of plugging one’s ears and running into the closet are examples of denial, which is a very common defence mechanism.
Table 12.4 Examples of Some Major Defence Mechanisms
Defence
Mechanism
Definition Example
Denial Refusing to
acknowledge
unpleasant
information,
particularly
about oneself.
People deny all sorts of things—ways in which
they are to blame for their relationship problems;
bad things that other members of their family
may be doing; dangerous behaviours, such as
drinking while pregnant, that they may be
engaged in; and truly, just about anything.
Simply blocking distressing things from one’s
mind can be a remarkably effective strategy
(until it eventually comes back to haunt you).
Displacement Transforming
an
unacceptable
impulse into a
less
unacceptable or
neutral
behaviour.
After getting criticized by your boss at work, you
go home and yell at your spouse or criticize your
roommate for not doing more housework. One
way or another, you “take out your anger” on a
less dangerous target than your boss.
Identification Unconsciously
assuming the
characteristics
of a more
powerful person
in order to
A child acts like their favourite hero-figure or an
adult copies a trend-setting celebrity. By
associating with a powerful, successful figure,
one feels more powerful and successful too.
reduce feelings
of anxiety or
negative
feelings about
the self.
Projection Perceiving in
other people the
qualities that
you don’t want
to admit to
possessing
yourself.
The classic insecure, tyrannical parent, who
sees hostility and “attitude” in other people, like
his kids or his wife, thinking that other people are
always seeing themselves as superior and are
looking down their noses others. Projection also
allows us to see “evil” and aggression in our
enemies while we invade and bomb them.
Rationalization Attempting to
hide one’s true
motives (even
from oneself!)
by providing
what seems like
a reasonable
explanation for
unacceptable
feelings or
behaviours.
People who are prejudiced against certain types
or groups of other people may not see
themselves as racist, but may instead believe
that the group they are prejudiced against
actually does possess certain negative qualities.
By believing that people from the disliked group
are violent, or lazy, or unintelligent, the person
never has to confront their own prejudice.
Reaction
Formation
Altering an
impulse that
one finds
personally
unacceptable
into its opposite.
People who are judgmental and condemning of
homosexuality, yet have homosexual impulses
themselves. For example, homophobic men tend
to have greater penile arousal, compared to non-
homophobic men, when looking at male-on-male
pornography (Adams et al., 1996).
Repression Keeping
distressing
Many people believe that victims of abuse or
violence are sometimes able to repress their
information out
of conscious
awareness by
burying it in the
unconscious.
traumatic memories, essentially “forgetting” that
the trauma occurred. Nevertheless, the trauma
remains in their unconscious, causing them to
react in ways that are driven by this unconscious
material.
Sublimation Transforming
unacceptable
impulses into
socially
acceptable or
even pro-social
alternatives.
Someone with a great deal of aggression may
become a football player or a boxer. Freud
believed that sublimation was one of the
cornerstones of civilization, the mechanism by
which base human desires were harnessed to
give rise to great works of art, invention, and
scientific advance. Sublimation operates to make
you feel better by finding socially acceptable
outlets for unconscious drives and urges.
Defence mechanisms play key roles in many important social phenomena, such as prejudice and discrimination. For example, imagine a CEO of a company choosing not to hire a member of an ethnic minority; the CEO may protect herself from admitting the possibility that the choice was racially motivated by
engaging in rationalization, reasoning that the applicant didn’t seem as impressive, professional, or “like she will fit into our team.” You can imagine the thought, “It had nothing to do with race, of course! I just want to hire the best person for the job, and I felt that she wasn’t the right fit. After all, I have a lot of experience in this company, and I trust my sense of who is going to work out and who isn’t.” You can see how easily a person’s own reasoning process can be hijacked by the ego in order to protect itself, and the line between what is true and what merely appears to be true can so easily be blurred.
Unfortunately, although defence mechanisms may keep us from feeling anxiety in the moment, they are ultimately dysfunctional for a variety of reasons. One is simply that undesirable tendencies are not confronted and problems are not dealt with; instead, immense energy is devoted to maintaining the defence mechanisms and trying to feel okay. For example, alcoholics (and often their
families) sometimes go to great lengths to avoid having to admit that they have a problem, which only worsens the impact of alcohol on their lives. Freud’s (and others’) work on defence mechanisms remains influential to this day, particularly in the mental health field, where defence mechanisms often play important roles in therapy for psychological disorders.
Personality Development: the Psychosexual
Stages
Freud’s theory of personality also involved a sophisticated understanding of development. Freud believed that the personality developed as the person learned to channel the energy of the libido into appropriate forms of self- expression. Thus, to Freud, development of the infant and child is ruled by the id, involving the young child struggling to contain and channel sexual urges and feelings. The child is a bundle of animal impulses, and development is therefore based on the ego and superego developing properly through appropriate socialization experiences as the child grows up. Freud highlighted specific developmental challenges that children faced at different points of their lives, developing a stage theory of psycho-sexual development that tracked the progression children went through as they matured through the various stages
(see Table 12.5 ).
Table 12.5 Freud’s Stages of Psychosexual Development
Stage Pleasure
Focus
Key Dynamics
Oral (0–18
months)
Actions of
the mouth
—sucking,
chewing,
swallowing
This stage is about the foundation of the ego. Fixation at
this stage represents a basic lack of self-confidence and
“ego-strength,” leaving the person more dependent on,
and therefore vulnerable to, external sources of support.
Anal (18–
36
Bowel
elimination,
This stage is about the development of a sense of control
and competence. Fixation at this stage leads to an “anal
months) control retentive” or “anal expulsive” personality, manifesting
either as an obsession with cleanliness, order, and
control, or as a disorganized person.
Phallic (3–
6 years)
Genitals The key personality challenge is the Oedipus complex,
through which a person further develops the superego
due to the internalization of values from the parents.
Fixation at this stage leads to problems with jealousy and
obsessions with power and sex.
Latency (6
years until
puberty)
External
activities
Ideally, this stage is fairly conflict-free. People focus on
developing themselves, discovering their interests through
sports, arts, and general activities. Fixation at this stage
was not considered to be a big concern.
Genital
(puberty
to
adulthood)
Sexual
activities
with others
Ideally, this stage is also fairly conflict-free. People focus
on fully and authentically engaging in the world, provided
they are not fixated at earlier stages.
Interestingly, most of Freud’s stages happened in the first five years of life, reflecting the central importance of the developmental milestones that occur in the first five years. At each stage, the libido manifests in particular areas of the body, depending on what areas of the body are most salient and important at that particular time of life. For example, as babies, sucking for food and comfort is a central activity, whereas for toddlers, learning to control the bowels and become toilet-trained is a pretty major focus; these physical challenges were reflected by Freud as specific stages (in this case the oral and anal stages). When these bodily areas are relevant to the person, they become a focus for the id, which attempts to derive as much pleasure as possible from gaining gratification in those areas. Thus, each of these important regions becomes a battleground pitting the child’s id against the restrictions of the external world.
If the child was able to release their libidinal energy appropriately through the part of the body that was relevant at that time, this would help them have a healthy relationship with themselves and they would be free to focus on the next stages of development. However, if their need satisfaction was thwarted or
interfered with, they would become fixated at that stage. Fixation involves becoming preoccupied with obtaining the pleasure associated with a particular stage as a result of not being able to adequately regulate themselves and satisfy their needs at that stage. Fixation can occur either because of conflict and excessive parental interference (e.g., criticizing the child for making mistakes during toilet training), or because the child is allowed to overindulge in that form
of pleasure-seeking behaviour (e.g., the Simpsons character Maggie is in serious danger of developing an oral fixation).
The Oral Stage (0–18 months)
For babies, the mouth is where it’s at; all the action that really matters happens through their mouths: feeding, comfort, teething, and even the early experiences of aggression. As a result, the mouth is a major focus for both pleasure and frustration, and the ego has to learn to satisfy the id’s desire for biting and sucking with the superego’s admonishments about what is appropriate in a situation. If this goes well, the infant develops a basic sense of security and empowerment; this is the initial foundation for the ego.
However, if the infant either can’t satisfy its need for security, comfort, or food, or conversely, if it is over-indulged so that it develops an emotional attachment to
using its mouth, then it will develop an oral fixation. Instead of having a healthy ability to self-assert, the infant may develop to be dependent, have an addictive personality, and seek to “consume” the world for its own emotional needs. Fixating at the oral stage means that the person never fully develops their ego, and is therefore more vulnerable to anxiety and less capable at adjusting to social reality.
The Anal Stage (18 months–3 years)
Toddlers begin to become aware of themselves as separate individuals at the
same time that they are gaining control over the bowels. Toilet training thus becomes the focal activity at this stage. Freud believed that if bathroom skills were learned successfully and positively with support and encouragement from caregivers, the result was a sense of competence and confidence that would lead the toddler to develop into a well-adjusted and productive adult. But if parents were too strict and critical of toddlers, making them feel bad about “having accidents” and putting too much pressure on them, they could become fixated at this stage, struggling with issues like shame and control. Eventually, they could become “anal retentive” adults, a rather rigid personality excessively concerned with cleanliness and order with a high need for control and little emotional openness. Or, if parents were too lenient and provided too little support for toilet training, this would produce an “anal expulsive” adult who exhibits opposite qualities of carelessness, disorganization, and general irresponsibility.
The Phallic Stage (3–6 years)
This early childhood stage is a crucially important stage in Freud’s view, although this is where people often find Freud’s theories hard to swallow and many reject his ideas altogether. We believe it is worth considering what insights there may be in Freud’s thinking, even if some of the specific details seem questionable. Also, keep in mind that the full development of Freud’s theories is far more brilliant and detailed than what we are able to capture in a brief overview.
From ages 3 to 6 years, bodily attention shifts to the genitals as children become aware of the differences between boys and girls and start to heavily identify with
one gender. Boys go through the now-infamous Oedipus complex. Freud theorized that in boys, the attachment to the mother that was achieved during infancy (through oral means) now gets expressed in the phallus. He claimed that a boy in this stage become sexually attracted to his mother. The boy also realizes that he is in competition with his father for his mother’s affections; this creates resentment toward the father and, in the wonderful logic of young children, makes the boy want to kill his father. During this stage, boys struggle with highly conflicted feelings toward their fathers, feeling both attached to and hostile toward them. This is a very difficult time emotionally, as boys are torn
between such strong feelings and desires. Freud represents this anguish with
the Greek tragedy of Oedipus Rex (by Sophocles); in this story, the main character, Oedipus, kills his father without knowing he has done so, and ends up marrying his mother. When he eventually learns what he has done, he is so overcome with horror that he stabs his own eyes, blinding himself. (The ancient Greeks were fairly intense.)
Freud used highly sexual language to describe the phallic stage, although it is important to remember that the literal descriptions can also be understood to provide metaphoric insights into personality. According to Freud, little boys are quite distressed to learn that their mothers do not have penises; they reason that something must have happened to cut them off. And if that happened to their mothers, it might happen to them! Furthermore, it stands to reason that it was the powerful father figure who did the nasty deed, thus causing a great deal of
castration anxiety, the fear of castration by one’s father. (Metaphorically, castration anxiety is the fear of emasculation.) Boys resolve this fear, and thus the Oedipus complex, by learning to identify with the father, developing a close bond with him, while repressing sexual feelings for the mother.
For girls, the logic was considerably more complicated and Freud revised his theories somewhat over time. Freud believed that girls also want to sexually possess their mothers and feel competition with their fathers. When girls
discover that they themselves lack a penis, they experience penis envy, which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. As a result, girls redirect their sexual interest to their fathers, and subsequently men in general, because that’s the way to get a penis. Having a child someday, particularly a boy, is also likely to be highly desired, because having a boy is (according to Freud) another way of obtaining a penis.
As mentioned earlier, Freud’s theories are considered to be very deep and often profound, although it requires a lot of “unpacking” to get to those insights. For example, with regards to penis envy, you can take the penis as more of a symbol of power and masculinity, rather than as a literal penis. You can therefore take the envy of the penis to represent the female child’s desire for empowerment, which she would gain through association with masculine traits and pursuits.
When you think about it this way, you can see some potential merit to Freud’s ideas. But for the most part, this part of Freud’s theory has had little influence on the rest of the field. Also, we assume that the critiques of Freud’s ideas about women are painfully obvious at this point; indeed, these critiques of the phallic stage, as well as its general inaccuracy as a description of the psychological experiences of most people, have been devastating to this part of Freud’s theories.
The importance of the phallic stage is that, at its resolution, the child has formed a healthy relationship with the parents, resulting in the internalization of parental values, which completes the formation of the superego. Successfully transitioning out of this stage leaves the child well prepared as a moral being. On the other hand, becoming fixated at this stage has striking negative consequences. People become plagued with jealousy and preoccupied with sex, seduction, competitiveness, and power.
Freud believed that girls never entirely resolve their Oedipus complexes (the
term Electra complex was coined by Carl Jung but rejected by Freud), leaving women with somewhat less well-developed superegos and thus, a less reliable morality. He theorized that to the extent that Oedipal issues remain, women will seek to control and dominate men through their sexuality or submissiveness because, of course, men have the penises that women envy.
The Latency Stage (6–13 years)
After the lurid sexuality and emotional drama of the phallic stage, the latency stage is downright boring. Between ages 5 and 13, the ego and superego have achieved a degree of general calm. The sexual nature of the libido is deemphasized, and it is instead directed into more productive activities than trying to mate with and murder one’s parents, such as education, hobbies, and hanging out with friends. This is a period of rich personal development for children, during which they gain many of their intellectual, social, artistic, and physical skills. Interestingly, people don’t get fixated at this stage, because personality is largely formed by the end of the phallic stage, and if people are not fixated at an earlier stage, they become relatively free to pursue their interests.
The Genital Stage
The onset of puberty marks the beginning of this stage, which continues throughout adulthood. This is the time during which the person emerges into a mature adult personality, with a fully developed capacity for productive work and satisfying and loving relationships. However, those who remain fixated at previous stages will suffer from underdeveloped personalities, which cause any number of problems in their subsequent adulthoods.
Modern psychodynamic psychologists generally agree that Freud’s stages of psychosexual development are not an accurate view of personality development. However, even this is not entirely clear; clinical psychologists often report observing patterns that are consistent with Freud’s observations of each stage of
psychosexual development (Westen, 1998). For example, one study reported that young children are more likely to show affection to the same-sexed parent
and aggression toward the opposite-sexed parent (Watson & Getz, 1990). This is reminiscent of the Oedipus complex, although the underlying mechanisms are not necessarily the same (i.e., notice there is no reference to sexual attraction or murderous intent).
A huge challenge faced (and never surmounted) by Freudian thinkers was how to empirically measure many of the concepts and processes described in Freud’s theories. For example, how exactly does one measure the contents of the unconscious? How can we measure something that, by definition, people are unaware of?
Exploring the Unconscious with Projective Tests
As discussed earlier in this module, Freud devised a number of techniques for peering into the inner workings of the unconscious, such as analyzing the “psychopathologies of everyday life” for evidence of defence mechanisms and hidden motivations. Freud also refined methods, such as dream analysis and free association, which were believed to reveal unconscious material by side- stepping the conscious mind. For example, dream analysis was based on the
belief that the material in the unconscious, although not accessible to the conscious mind, nevertheless was depicted in our dreams. However, because much of the unconscious operates without language, dreams would not be literal, but symbolic representations of the contents of the unconscious. Thus, the dream analyst had to learn to properly interpret the symbolic meaning of dreams in order to understand what could be learned from the unconscious.
Since Freud’s time, psychodynamic psychologists have attempted to develop more standardized techniques for probing the unconscious. One popular
approach is to use projective tests , personality tests in which ambiguous images are presented to an individual to elicit responses that reflect unconscious desires or conflicts. They are called “projective” because the image can be interpreted in different ways, and the particular interpretation a person chooses is thought to be a projection of her unconscious.
One of the most familiar projective tests is the Rorschach inkblot test , in which people are asked to describe what they see in an inkblot, and psychologists interpret this description using a standardized scoring and interpretation method (Exner, 1991; see Figure 12.7 ). Another projective test is the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) , which asks respondents to tell stories about ambiguous pictures involving various interpersonal situations (Figure 12.8 ). For example, a picture might show a man and woman looking at each other with blank expressions. Subjects are asked to tell a story about the picture. Who are these people? What emotions are they feeling? Why are they looking at each other that way? The details in the story that a person makes up are thought to be a projection of their personality functioning, and thus, a way of illuminating their unconscious.
Figure 12.7 The Rorschach Inkblot Test Some psychologists attempt to measure personality characteristics by analyzing the verbal responses clients use to describe what they see in an inkblot such as this. Equinox Imagery/Alamy Stock Photo
Figure 12.8 The Thematic Apperception Test In this projective test, the individual is asked to tell a story about what is
happening in the image. The responses to this task are believed by some to give important insights into an individual’s personality. Ken Karp/Pearson Education
Unfortunately for proponents of projective tests, they have not fared well in empirical research, receiving criticism for low reliability and validity. Low reliability indicates that the test will not give the same measurement on subsequent assessments of the same person. Low validity indicates that the test does not actually measure what it purports to measure. For example, although projective tests are supposed to measure personality functioning, in some cases, such as
the figure-drawing test shown in Figure 12.9 , they actually measure a combination of artistic ability and intelligence (see Lilienfeld et al., 2000). Time and again, research has indicated serious limitations regarding the reliability and
validity of projective tests (Garb et al., 2005; Lilienfeld et al., 2000).
Figure 12.9 Figure Drawing as a Projective Test Figure drawing is another projective technique used by many psychologists. The content of the drawings is analyzed and interpreted by the therapist. It turns out that these drawings are somewhat related to artistic ability and intelligence, but
not personality (Lilienfeld et al., 2000).
Despite criticisms from some researchers, many therapists claim that they have experienced significant breakthroughs by using projective tests. A survey in the
mid-1990s estimated that 43% of clinical psychologists and psychiatrists made
frequent use of projective tests (Watkins et al., 1995). More recently, a survey of school psychologists showed that the TAT and Rorschach were used by 30% and 14% of these professionals, respectively, although their popularity appears
to be declining (Hojnoski et al., 2006).
Working the Scientific Literacy Model Perceiving Others as a Projective Test
There are clearly problems with the reliability and validity of some projective tests, but the basic idea of projection remains compelling to many psychologists. Could there be some way to measure projection with greater accuracy? One promising direction is to look at how people make judgments about what other people are like.
What do we know about the way people perceive others? People have a seemingly natural inclination to make assumptions about what others are like, even if only very limited information is available. We may judge people we hardly know as friendly, aggressive, selfish, or trustworthy, for example. But with virtually no information to guide us, how do we make these judgments? One possibility is that we make guesses as to what other people are like by using our own self-concepts as a guide. With no other information to go on, we tend to assume that most people are
kind of like us. The trait of Machiavellianism (see Module 12.1 ) provides a great example. People who exhibit this trait are generally willing and able to manipulate and deceive others to get what they want. Interestingly, they are more likely than the general population to see others as being cynical and selfish
(Christie & Geis, 1970). Thus, psychologists suggest that the degree to which an individual sees people as selfish and cynical
is, to an extent, a projection of his own Machiavellianism (Wood
et al., 2010).
How can scientists study how projection relates to personality? Although projection was initially a psychodynamic idea, contemporary researchers have begun to apply it to other approaches, such as the trait approach. In one study, participants rated both themselves and others in terms of personality traits such as the Big Five, narcissism (i.e., excessive self-importance), and symptoms of depression. Researchers found that the way that participants viewed themselves was related to how they viewed others. For example, people who viewed themselves positively (as agreeable, intelligent, and satisfied with life) were
likely to view others the same way (Wood et al., 2010). This provided evidence that how people perceive others appears to be a projection of how they perceive themselves.
Can we critically evaluate this research? The results of this study indicate that self-ratings and ratings of others are correlated. However, the correlations themselves are
not very large, meaning that psychologists cannot make precise predictions about a rater’s personality based on that individual’s
ratings of others, but rather can make only general statements. Furthermore, this study does not provide evidence that projection is actually occurring (i.e., that people are actually using their own self-concepts to guide their impressions of others). It could be the case that people are simply positive or negative in general, such as being optimistic or pessimistic. The positive, optimistic person would tend to see herself and others positively, and the negative, pessimistic person would do the opposite. Thus, the correlation between ratings of self and other simply reflects a general disposition, not a specific process of projection.
Why is this relevant? Standard projective tests such as the Rorschach inkblot test and
the Thematic Apperception Test are fraught with problems and controversy. It would be unheard of for modern medical doctors to diagnose disorders using procedures that are as unreliable and of as questionable validity as these tests. Thus it is important to search for new and better methods that might reveal meaningful information about the individuals taking them. Psychology need not necessarily abandon projective tests altogether, as the benefits of adding rigour and scrutiny to them has shown that
they can be of value (e.g., Schultheiss & Brunstein, 2001).
Module 12.3a Quiz:
The Psychodynamic Perspective
Know . . . 1. According to Freud, the is the personality component that is
responsible for seeking to immediately satisfy basic biological needs.
A. id B. ego C. superego D. libido
2. According to Freud, in which order do the stages of psychosexual development occur?
A. Oral, anal, phallic, latency, genital B. Oral, anal, genital, phallic, latency C. Anal, oral, phallic, latency, genital D. Latency, oral, anal, genital, phallic
Understand . . . 2. A defence mechanism would be employed
A. by the id to create anxiety.
B. by the superego to reduce or avoid anxiety. C. by the ego to reduce or avoid anxiety. D. by the superego to create anxiety.
Apply . . . 4. Dan lied to avoid getting in trouble with his parents, but now he is
experiencing anxiety caused by extreme guilt. According to Freud, these
negative feelings would arise due to the activity of the . A. Oedipus complex B. ego C. superego D. libido
Analyze . . . 5. Why have some psychologists questioned the reliability of projective
tests?
A. Judges very often agree on how to interpret an individual test. B. Individuals often score quite differently if tested at two different
times.
C. The tests may not measure what they claim to measure. D. These tests often provide disturbing details about a person’s
unconscious.
Alternatives to the Psychodynamic Approach
Freud attracted many followers, but some of his contemporaries took psychodynamic psychology in different directions. They recognized that sex and aggression are not the only motives driving personality development; indeed, other motivational forces, such as the need for belonging, the need for achievement, and the need for integrity or wholeness, are important aspects of personality.
Analytical Psychology
Carl Jung (1875–1961) made a dramatic break from Freud over disagreements about a number of issues, founding the analytical psychology movement. Analytical psychology focuses on the role of unconscious archetypes in personality development. The archetypes were believed to be housed in a region of the unconscious unique to Jung’s theories. In contrast to the Freudian unconscious, Jung believed that there were two main types of the unconscious,
a personal unconscious , which was basically the same as the Freudian unconscious, a vast repository of experiences and patterns absorbed during the person’s life, and a collective unconscious, which is not held within the individual person. The collective unconscious is a separate, non-personal realm of the unconscious that holds the collective memories and mythologies of humankind, stretching deep into our ancestral past. Jung thought of the personal and collective unconscious as entirely different “levels” of consciousness, although they are so different from one another as to be basically completely different things. The personal unconscious is still housed within the person, but the collective unconscious is more like a larger field of forces, which shape the individual personality in certain characteristic ways.
Within analytical psychology, archetypes played a central role; archetypes
are images and symbols that reflect common patterns of experience across all cultures. There are many different archetypes and several particularly important ones, including the Mother, the Child, the Trickster, the Wise Old Man, the Hero, and the Shadow, among others. The Shadow archetype represents unwanted aspects of the self that the person is unwilling to acknowledge; this archetype has been particularly influential among psychologists who emphasize personal
growth, individual empowerment, and healing from trauma (e.g., Ford, 2002). These archetypes were thought to represent major narrative patterns in human experience, part of the universal tapestry of human life. Thus, when archetypal symbols appeared (for example, in a person’s dreams), it was believed that they could be interpreted and would give important insights into the person’s personal growth and well-being. Archetypes are a very popular aspect of Jungian psychology, but they have not had much of an impact on the rest of the field,
again due to their unscientific nature.
The Power of Social Factors
Alfred Adler (1870–1937) initially differentiated himself from Freud by arguing for the importance of social dynamics and conscious thoughts (as opposed to sexual and aggressive drives in the unconscious) as determinants of behaviour. He rejected the centrality of the pleasure principle, instead emphasizing the inferiority complex , the struggle many people have with feelings of inferiority, which stem from experiences of helplessness and powerlessness during childhood. Adler described how people strive to compensate for their feelings of inferiority by trying to appear competent and, in many cases, overcompensate for inferior feelings by trying to be or appear superior to others. Adler’s theories of the importance of the need for power have had a profound influence on the field of psychology and continue to inspire contemporary
research (e.g., Watts, 2000).
Karen Horney (1885–1952) also disagreed with Freud’s heavy emphasis on sex, and especially infantile sexuality. Instead, Horney (disappointingly pronounced “HORN-eye”) focused on the importance of social and cultural factors, arguing that to understand personality one should focus on the functioning of a person’s present self, rather than overwhelmingly focusing on the unconscious, which was largely formed in early childhood. Horney highlighted the role of interpersonal conflict between children and their parents as important to personality development. She also strongly advocated against Freud’s “phallocentrism” (i.e., emphasis on the penis). To counter his theory of the Oedipus complex, Horney argued instead that men suffer from “womb envy,” because men can never experience the miracle of birth and of carrying another human life as part of oneself, or the experiences of breastfeeding and other biological acts of motherhood. She said that men attempted to compensate for their perceived deficiencies by focusing on work and by devaluing and subjugating women. While Freud believed that women suffered from penis envy, Horney argued that any “envy” Freud observed in the female psyche was envy of the patriarchal
power enjoyed by men, not of men’s sexual equipment (Paris, 1994).
As you can see, psychodynamic theorists have separated themselves in a number of important ways. Contemporary psychodynamic psychologists work mostly in the field of clinical and counselling psychology. And, despite some differences, modern psychodynamic psychologists do share many of the core attributes of psychoanalytic thought: an emphasis on the unconscious, internal conflicts between opposing forces within personality, and the influence of early
experiences on adult personality (Westen, 1998).
Humanistic Perspectives
Reacting against the pessimism and disempowerment inherent in Freudian approaches, the humanistic psychologists wanted to explore the potential for humans to become truly free and deeply fulfilled. Thinking outside the boxes of behaviourism and psychodynamic theories, the humanistic psychologists emphasized the individual’s free will to make choices, highlighted positive motivations for personal growth and development, and explored the upper ranges of human experience, such as feelings of transcendence, love, and fulfillment. Proponents of the humanistic approach believed it would become the “third force” in psychology, after psychoanalysis and behaviourism.
Among the many influential humanistic psychologists, Carl Rogers was perhaps uniquely responsible for helping to launch the movement and for cementing certain ideas in the field that remain to this day. Rather than the Freudian depiction of people plagued by complexes and defences, Rogers championed a person-centred perspective , founded on the assumption that people are basically good, and given the right environment their personality will develop fully and normally. Rogers believed that people possess immense inner resources for growth and resilience, and a desire for self-actualization , which is the drive to grow and fulfill one’s potential.
According to Rogers, fully functioning, self-actualized people deeply accept themselves and are highly self-aware; having moved beyond the need to erect defences to ward off negative feelings, they become aware of their inherent goodness. Rogers believed that the more self-actualized a person becomes, the more his inherently good nature will dominate his personality. Other leading
humanistic psychologists, such as Abraham Maslow, also sought to identify the characteristics of fully functioning, self-actualizing people. Research on human strengths and virtues continues to this day, gaining new life in recent years through the positive psychology movement, with renewed interest in topics like personal growth, gratitude, authenticity, and meaning.
Module 12.3b Quiz:
Alternatives to the Psychodynamic Approach
Know . . . 1. The aspect of consciousness proposed by Carl Jung that is a store of
archetypes representing symbols and experiences common to all
cultures is called the . A. preconscious B. subconscious C. analytical conscious D. collective unconscious
2. In contrast to psychodynamic theories, humanistic theories emphasize A. free will. B. how personalities are determined by biology. C. how personality is determined by the environment. D. how defence mechanisms affect behaviour.
Apply . . . 3. Alexandra’s older sister is praised for being good at math, but Alexandra
struggles with the subject. What would the resulting feelings of being “not good enough” be called?
A. Negative reinforcement B. Negative archetype C. Inferiority complex D. Oedipus complex
Analyze . . .
4. Which of the following is not a critique of Freud’s psychodynamic approach to personality?
A. It focuses on situations we cannot control. B. It does not yield many scientifically testable hypotheses. C. It was based on a very limited sample of subjects. D. It has not been found useful or applicable to clinical psychology.
Module 12.3 Summary
analytical psychology
archetypes
collective unconscious
conscious mind
defence mechanisms
ego
fixation
id
inferiority complex
person-centred perspective
personal unconscious
projective tests
Rorschach inkblot test
self-actualization
superego
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
Know . . . the key terminology related to the psychodynamic and humanistic approaches to personality.
12.3a
unconscious mind
According to the psychodynamic perspective, defence mechanisms activate whenever we are threatened by feelings of anxiety due to conflicts between different systems within consciousness. These mechanisms include denying and repressing urges, displacing them, or finding more acceptable ways of expressing them.
To explain personality development, Freud began with the concept of libido—the id’s energy source for the drives that originate at different focal points of the body from infancy to adolescence. Each of the stages of psychosexual development— oral, anal, phallic, latent, and genital—is associated with a unique form of conflict as the ego and superego develop. Failure to resolve the corresponding conflict can result in a fixation, in which the person is stuck at a certain phase of development, and this can cause problems later in life.
Apply Activity To apply the psychodynamic approach to understand someone’s personality, you would consider the role that unconscious processes play in determining behaviour, as well as the conflicts that exist between a person’s impulses and his
need to regulate them. Review Freud’s structure of the mind (illustrated in Figure 12.6 ) and the psychosexual stages of development. What might each of the following situations mean from Freud’s perspective?
1. A student cannot concentrate on her homework until every little item on
Understand . . . how people use defence mechanisms to cope with conflicting thoughts and feelings.
12.3b
Understand . . . the developmental stages Freud used to explain the origins of personality.
12.3c
Apply . . . both psychodynamic and humanistic perspectives to explain personality.
12.3d
her desk is in its appropriate place.
2. An individual commits violent acts against others without feeling any remorse.
To apply the humanistic perspective to understand personality, you would look at the person’s motivations for personal growth and fulfillment and consider whether they embody the set of traits described by Maslow as characterizing self-actualized people. In each of the following scenarios, which personality characteristic could the person work on changing in order to move toward becoming self-actualized?
1. Dave is a pragmatic guy, preferring the hard, cold facts of reality to fantasies about how life could be different. He is not afraid to express what he really thinks, and is not very concerned about whether other people accept or reject him. Because he is so comfortable with himself, he has little anxiety and can behave spontaneously and freely in most situations. He feels strongly patriotic toward his country, and thinks that government should focus on issues like taxes and the economy, rather than trying to help people who are disadvantaged due to poverty.
2. Zoe is enthusiastic about life and has a strong spiritual practice, using meditation and prayer to feel closer to the divine. She feels profound empathy for people in all parts of the world and is described by her family as a “bleeding heart,” someone who cares strongly for people who are worse off than her. She regrets some of the choices she made earlier in life, and although she tries to learn from them, finds herself often nostalgically thinking about the past. She has many friends and is very socially active, in part because she is such a people-pleaser that she is good at presenting herself in such a way that she makes other people comfortable.
In this module you learned about projective tests such as the Rorschach inkblot test and the Thematic Apperception Test, which some psychologists believe are
Analyze . . . whether projective tests are valid measures of personality.
12.3e
useful tools that give them insight into unconscious processes. However, projective tests do not appear to be valid ways of assessing characteristics of a person’s personality.
Psychodynamic theories can provide some compelling explanations for human motivation. For example, it is easy to understand how social and moral conflicts arise when couched in terms of a struggle between the id and the ego. At the same time, this approach does not have a lot of scientific support. Its key concepts, such as the id, ego, and superego, are theoretical constructs that cannot be empirically measured. Also, the psychosexual stages of development are no longer believed to be accurate descriptions of stages that children go through while growing up.
Analyze . . . the strengths and weaknesses of psychodynamic perspectives.
12.3f
Chapter 13 Social Psychology
13.1 The Power of the Situation: Social Influences on Behaviour The Person and the Situation 533
Module 13.1a Quiz 537
The Asch Experiments: Conformity 537
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Examining Why People Conform: Seeing Is Believing 538
Module 13.1b Quiz 540
The Bystander Effect: Situational Influences on Helping Behaviour 541
Module 13.1c Quiz 544
Social Roles and Obedience 544
Module 13.1d Quiz 549
Module 13.1 Summary 549
13.2 Social Cognition Person Perception 552
Module 13.2a Quiz 554
The Self in the Social World 554
Module 13.2b Quiz 557
Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Discrimination 557
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: Explicit versus Implicit Measures of Prejudice 559
Module 13.2c Quiz 562
Module 13.2 Summary 563
13.3 Attitudes, Behaviour, and Effective Communication Changing People’s Behaviour 565
Module 13.3a Quiz 566
Using the Central Route Effectively 566
Working the Scientific Literacy Model: The Identifiable Victim Effect 568
Module 13.3b Quiz 571
Using the Peripheral Route Effectively 572
Module 13.3c Quiz 574
The Attitude–Behaviour Feedback Loop 574
Module 13.3d Quiz 576
Module 13.3 Summary 576
Module 13.1 The Power of the Situation: Social Influences on Behaviour
Ted Pink /Alamy Stock Photo
Learning Objectives
Know . . . the key terminology associated with social influence. Understand . . . why individuals conform to others’ behaviours. Understand . . . how individuals and groups can influence behaviours. Apply . . . your knowledge of the bystander effect to ensure that you will
13.1a 13.1b 13.1c 13.1d
In an interview for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), Joe Darby described what it felt like when he started looking at the pictures. They’d been given to him on a CD by a colleague, Charles Graner. They seemed innocent at first, scenes of soldiers at different locations around Baghdad, Iraq. Then he saw a pyramid of naked men, climbing on top of each other. It made him laugh. However, he soon realized these were not people joking around; these were pictures of Iraqi prisoners being tortured and degraded, in the very prison he was working in.
He saw images of his fellow soldier, Charles Graner, physically assaulting a group of handcuffed prisoners. He saw a photo of naked male prisoners with bags over their heads positioned in sexually suggestive poses. And he saw many images of another fellow soldier, Lynndie England, leading prisoners around on a leash, standing behind a pile of naked prisoners while giving a thumbs-up sign, and posing with an Iraqi prisoner who had died.
Then, Joe Darby made the critical decision: He decided to turn the pictures over to the Army’s criminal investigation unit, blowing the whistle on an appalling situation of torture and corruption that implicated the US military and some high-ranking government officials. You may have seen some of these photos yourself, as they were splashed across newspapers and websites around the world. They are chilling, to the extreme, depicting tortures committed by U.S. soldiers against Iraqi citizens in, of all places, Abu Ghraib. Ironically, this prison was renowned for its use of brutal torture under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, who was the leader that the U.S. soldiers were “liberating” the Iraqi people from.
When he decided to hand over the pictures, Darby feared that he would be putting himself at serious risk for retaliation from his fellow soldiers. It would be all too easy for any of his fellow soldiers to quietly kill him in his
be helped if you are in an emergency. Analyze . . . whether guards who participate in abuse are inherently bad people, or whether their behaviour is the product of social influences.
13.1e
sleep. However, because he had made his reports anonymously, none of the other soldiers knew that he was the whistle-blower. Astonishingly, it was none other than Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense at the time, who blew Darby’s cover. Rumsfeld appeared on TV and personally thanked Joe Darby, by name, for turning in the photos; this unbelievable mistake left Darby unprotected and completely vulnerable to any who would seek revenge.
When his fellow soldiers found out, he was widely congratulated, but back in his home town, Darby was regarded as a traitor. In his words, “You have some people who don’t view it as right and wrong. They view it as: I put American soldiers in prison over Iraqis.” For their own security, Darby, his wife, and children were placed in protective custody. Today, they remain in an undisclosed location, accompanied by a military escort whenever they go out—even for something as simple as a trip to the grocery store.
When we learn about atrocities like Abu Ghraib, we want to understand how people could ever do such things. The hope is that by understanding the social and psychological dynamics that lead to these tragedies, we may be able to prevent more of them in the future, and make it easier for heroes such as Joe Darby to come forward and do the right thing. One thing is certain, people can resist social pressures in any circumstance. And when they do, it pays off in a deep sense of inner conviction and a clear conscience. Joe Darby says that after all he and his family have been through, “I’ve never regretted for one second what I did when I was in Iraq, to turn those pictures in.”
Focus Questions
1. What leads people to engage in horrific acts against others? 2. How much are our behaviours influenced by others?
The Person and the Situation
Most of us grew up with a clear distinction between right and wrong and the belief that the world is comprised of good guys and bad guys. Then we assume that we’re the good guys, and so are people who are “like us.” After all, we don’t go around murdering, torturing, or committing crimes, right? So when terrible things happen, we assume that it’s “other” people who do these things: fundamentally different types of people—bad guys. Although this may be a comforting way to experience the world, it has at least one big downside. When terrible things do occur, we generally look for which bad people to blame, and as a result, we fail to question or challenge the larger system.
Dr. Philip Zimbardo, a highly influential social psychologist of the last half century, is a champion of this alternative view. He says it’s not the bad apples, but the bad barrels. After carefully studying over a thousand pictures of abusive acts occurring in Abu Ghraib, Zimbardo concluded that the tragedy should be seen as an outgrowth of the whole system, and that the blame likely goes very high up the chain of military/political leadership, because a situation was intentionally created that systematically promoted or endorsed the use of violence against Iraqi prison detainees.
REUTERS/Alamy Stock Photo
For example, there was a general lack of supervision over guards’ treatment of detainees, a pervasive and constant fear of terrorism, the presence of many non- military personnel hired from private security companies who didn’t have the same public accountability as military officers, the general danger and stress of living in the area, physical and mental exhaustion, language and cultural barriers
that would make it easier to fall into Us vs. Them ways of thinking (see Module 13.2 ), frequent changes made to the official rules on what were considered acceptable methods for interrogation, the prevalence of social norms condoning prejudice towards outgroups (e.g., Iraqis, Muslims, prisoners) and favouritism towards in-group members (e.g.,. Americans, soldiers, prison guards). Finally, there were contributing factors high up the chain of military and political command. For example, at the prison itself the soldiers who interrogated detainees experienced immense pressure from higher up the chain of command to “get results” when interrogating detainees; they were also frequently, and conveniently, left unsupervised when with detainees, so that when they “worked them over” their superiors would be officially unaware. At the highest level of government, President Bush changed the U.S.’s official policy on torture, even stepping outside of the Geneva Convention prohibiting torture, all in the name of
“fighting terrorism.” One could argue that this created powerful cultural pressures towards, and provided legitimacy to the use of, torture and violence. Zimbardo
believes that all of these situational factors worked together, not strictly to cause a specific act to occur, but to make it more likely that soldiers in those conditions
would commit violent acts (Zimbardo, 2004, 2007).
Courtesy Wikipedia/ZUMA Press/Newscom
It’s disturbing to fully consider the situational explanation for “evil.” Most of us would rather believe in the dispositional, bad apples explanation. Otherwise we
have to face the possibility that we also have the capacity to do terrible things if we fall into the wrong circumstances. On the other hand, if we fail to appreciate the power of the situation, how can we prevent history from repeating itself? How can we learn the lessons taught by Abu Ghraib, or by the Holocaust, if we assume that these things occurred as aberrations, rather than recognizing that certain predictable, situational factors make these types of tragedies more likely to occur?
We must also remember that the situational analysis is never enough to fully explain a behaviour pattern. Individuals retain free will (or so we assume). People are still, in the final analysis, responsible for their behaviour. For example, in Abu Ghraib, most of the soldiers did not behave abusively; they seemed to be able to resist the power of the situation. Joe Darby even had the courage to step forward and report the abuses so that the rest of the world found out what was going on.
To try to fully understand social reality, social psychologists study the interaction between the person and the situation. Kurt Lewin (1936), a key founder (often regarded as the grandfather) of social psychology, expressed this insight as B = f(P,E): Behaviour is a function of the Person and the Environment. This insight challenged the Freudian theories of the early 20th century, which explained a person’s behaviour as being guided by unconscious forces that were rooted in that person’s distant personal past. It also challenged behaviourism, with its emphasis on the person’s history of conditioning. Social psychologists, in contrast, emphasized the role of the individual in choosing how to interpret a situation, and ultimately, how to respond. They also focused on the person’s experience in the present moment. Lewin brought a metaphor from physics into psychology, arguing that a person’s behaviour was the consequence of sets of forces operating on the person, and once an analyst sufficiently understood the forces, then the person’s behaviour could be predicted, just as one could analyze the trajectory of an object by understanding the physical forces (gravity, friction, etc.) operating on the object. This general approach was extremely influential in social psychology and has been widely applied in the business world. Theories of how to create change in organizations often incorporate Lewin’s logic, analyzing the forces operating in the situation and determining which forces to
change.
The past 80 years or so of research in social psychology that has flowed from this insight has pieced together a deep understanding of the situational forces and individual characteristics that determine human behaviour.
Mimicry and Social Norms
Our analysis begins by considering the powerful, and often overlooked, ways in which we are influenced by the people who are immediately around us. For
example, although we are often unaware of it, we tend to engage in mimicry , taking on for ourselves the behaviours, emotional displays, and facial expressions of others.
For example, the chameleon effect (Chartrand & Bargh, 1999) describes how people mimic others non-consciously, automatically copying others’ behaviours even without realizing it. You tend to laugh and smile when others are laughing and smiling. More generally, you make the same emotional expressions on your face as those you see on the faces around you, and then pick up their moods as well. And if someone else is whispering, you will likely whisper, even if it is to ask, “Why are we whispering?” The examples are literally endless; practically every moment of social interaction between people involves mimicry.
This kind of subtly attuned mimicry is highly functional (Lakin et al., 2003), much of the time serving as a “social glue,” helping to coordinate behaviours in social settings, helping people to feel reassured and validated by each other, sending the unconsciously processed message to others that you are kind of like them, and more so, that you are paying attention to them in that moment.
Humans are a social species, and coordinating our behaviour with others is a key part of learning to function in the social world. It is often a good idea to see what other people are doing and “go with the flow.” Learning through observation
is one of our key activities in life (see Module 6.3 ), and probably has been for a long part of our evolutionary past. It’s what we humans do.
The vast bulk of this social processing occurs through implicit, unconscious processes that we can examine at multiple levels of analysis. For example, there are implicit processes of attention, perception, emotions, and behaviour that are
described in social psychology (see also Module 13.2 ). There is emotional synchrony and influence that flows between people and through groups and social networks, and there is even physiological synchrony that ties people together, such as how people’s hormone levels synchronize when they live with each other. The point is, a lot goes on that links us together with other people and we are consciously aware of very little of it.
The social benefits of mimicry can be seen by how they affect social interactions. For example, people mimic others more when they are trying to make a good
impression (Lakin & Chartrand, 2003). It does seem to work: when someone adopts similar bodily movements and gestures to your own (even quite subtly),
you tend to like them more (Chartrand & Bargh, 1999). However, it’s a different story if you try to intentionally mimic people’s behaviour in order to manipulate them. Consciously trying to “steer” this process could lead you into trouble, just like focusing too much on a well-practised movement can cause you to mess it up. Indeed, if someone notices that a person is mimicking them, they like that
person less as a result (Maddux et al., 2008); so, if you are using this power for your own nefarious purposes, at the very least, be subtle about it!
Given that mimicry is so implicit and deeply ingrained, it would make sense to expect that we humans would find it awfully difficult to resist being influenced by
each other. In many different situations, we tend to conform to the social norms that are evident. Social norms are the (usually unwritten) guidelines for how to behave in social contexts. Norms influence everything from our manners (e.g., you probably make different jokes when out with your friends than when you meet your boy/girlfriend’s parents for the first time), to the amount of alcohol we drink, food we eat, clothes we wear, and even the beliefs and attitudes we express. Social norms govern much of our behaviour, even though people often fail to realize this and instead believe that their behaviour is freely
chosen (Nolan et al., 2008). Much social psychological research has shown that people have relatively poor insight into the actual causal factors that influence
their behaviour much of the time; we aren’t in control of ourselves as much as we
would like to believe (Nisbett & Wilson, 1977).
Mimicry and social norms reflect the fact that much of our lives are spent in groups; whether it’s hanging out with friends, doing a work or school project, performing artistically, and so on, small groups are hard to avoid. A key question in social psychology is whether people behave differently in groups than they do as individuals, and how behaviour changes as a result of being in a group.
Group Dynamics: Social Loafing and Social
Facilitation
Let’s start with a question about your own experiences in groups—how do you feel about group assignments? Do you like them because they’re an opportunity to get to know people, or maybe because the group can accomplish something more impressive together than they could alone? Or do you hate group projects because other people waste so much time, or because people don’t have very good ideas, or because some people are slackers whose work doesn’t meet your standards and you end up having to do everything? You probably have some kind of opinion on group projects. But here’s the thing—regardless of your feelings, you are almost certainly going to be working in groups in your future. Whether it’s your job, family and community groups, or the group project your charming professor assigns to your class, it’s pretty tough to avoid working with other people.
Often one of the main purposes of a group is to produce better work than an individual could by working alone. But does this really happen? Do groups produce better work, making the most out of individuals’ ideas and encouraging their best efforts? Or do they produce poorer outcomes, limiting people’s creativity and enabling them to slack off? Oddly enough, the answer to both questions is “yes, sometimes.”
Groups sometimes produce poorer outcomes due to social loafing , which occurs when an individual puts less effort into working on a task with others.
There are various phrases for describing this—coasting, slacking, free-riding. Social loafing can occur in all sorts of tasks, including physical activities (e.g., swimming, rope-pulling), cognitive activities (e.g., problem solving, perceptual tests), and creativity (e.g., song writing), and across all types of groups,
regardless of age, gender, or nationality (Karau & Williams, 2001; Latané et al., 2006). One reason why people loaf is because they think others in the group are also not doing their best, setting up an apparent social norm that “people in this group don’t work very hard.” There are two likely outcomes of social loafing. Either the group performs quite poorly (i.e., crashes and burns), or a small number of people end up saving the group by doing everything themselves.
Given the importance and inescapability of group work, it is important to understand what factors encourage loafing, so we can avoid them.
Low efficacy beliefs. This occurs if tasks are too difficult or complex, so people don’t know where to start. Structure tasks so people know exactly what to do, provide clear deadlines, and give people feedback so they know how well they are doing and how they can improve.
Believing that one’s contributions are not important to the group. This occurs if people can’t see how their own input matters to the group. Overcome this by helping people understand how group members rely on and affect each other, and assigning tasks to people that they feel are significant or they’ve had some say in choosing (if possible).
Not caring about the group’s outcome. This occurs when a person is not personally identified with the group, perhaps feeling socially rejected from the group or perceiving the group as unsuccessful or unimportant. Overcome this by making the group’s goals and values clear and explicit, encouraging friendships to form and group activities to be fun and socially rewarding.
Feeling like others are not trying very hard. As discussed earlier, people loaf if they feel others are loafing (Karau & Williams, 2001). Overcome this by providing feedback about the progress of group members on their individual tasks; strong groups often have regular meetings where people’s progress is discussed and, ideally, celebrated!
In contrast to social loafing, social facilitation occurs when one’s
performance is affected by the presence of others. For example, in probably the first social psychology experiment ever published, Norman Triplett (1898) found that cyclists ride faster when racing against each other than when trying to beat the clock. Many other researchers have found similar effects, even in animals. For example, ants are able to dig more when other ants are working alongside
them (Chen, 1937) and even cockroaches run down a runway more quickly when other cockroaches are around (Zajonc et al., 1969).
The presence of others doesn’t always improve performance, however. We’re all familiar with the athlete who “choked” at the big moment. The presence of others is likely to interfere with our performance when our skills are poor or the task is difficult. Even the cockroaches mentioned earlier did more poorly when other
cockroaches watched them try to navigate a more complex maze (Zajonc et al., 1969).
There are many different mechanisms that explain the social facilitation effect
(Uziel, 2007). One of the most important is that the presence of others is (emotionally) arousing, and arousal tends to strengthen our dominant responses. When the task is simple (e.g., run in a straight line), our dominant responses are the right ones, but when the task is very complex (e.g., juggle three axes), we need to be able to control our responses more carefully, and then arousal decreases performance. Thus, the effects of arousal due to social facilitation depend on one’s skills and the difficulty of the task; the greater the skills and the simpler the tasks, the more likely the presence of others will enhance performance. For true masters of a skill, audiences and competitors generally enhance performance, but novices tend to perform best in practice sessions
when nobody’s watching (Bell & Yee, 1989; MacCracken & Stadulis, 1985).
Groupthink
In the same way that feeling evaluated tends to limit one’s full abilities, the pressures that build within groups also often limit creativity, leading people to
hold back their ideas. Groupthink refers to this stifling of diversity that occurs when individuals are not able to express their true perspectives, instead having to focus more on maintaining harmony in the group and on not being
evaluated negatively.
In contrast with our optimistic visions of group “brainstorming” sessions that are wildly creative and inventive, the reality of group performance is quite a bit less impressive. Group members can feel evaluative or competitive pressures within the group, and as a result, the group norm is not as safe or supportive; this makes it feel more risky to put yourself out there and say something really radical and crazy. So, instead of a frenzy of creativity in which group members gleefully pile idea upon idea, group brainstorming often ends up being a kind of polite and restrained process, where a few ideas are aired and then the group quickly moves towards implementing something. In short, group brainstorming often fails.
When group members are more concerned with avoiding disagreements than with generating ideas, three main problems occur. First, group members may minimize or ignore potential problems and risks in the ideas they are considering. The lack of ability to critically question or disagree with ideas means that people will emphasize potential rewards and successes and overlook potentially disastrous things that might go wrong. Second, groups will likely settle too quickly on ideas, because social pressures will make people uncomfortable with prolonging a decision-making process. Instead, they will simply agree with one of the existing ideas. As a result, many potential ideas are never brought to the table for consideration. Third, groups often become overconfident and therefore less likely to carefully examine the consequences of their decisions, leading
them to be less likely to learn from their mistakes (Ahlfinger & Esser, 2001; Janis, 1972). All things considered, groupthink seems like a pretty bad outcome! (Interestingly, the main thing that groupthink is good for is implementing ideas— getting things done. It’s choosing the right things to do that groupthink interferes with.)
Historically, groupthink has been identified in some truly terrible decisions, including the 1986 decision to go ahead with the launch of the space shuttle
Challenger despite safety concerns (the shuttle broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, killing seven astronauts); the escalation of the Vietnam War; and the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, when a U.S.-sponsored military invasion attempted to
orchestrate an overthrow of Cuban leader Fidel Castro and was soundly defeated, to the immense embarrassment of the U.S. In each case, leaders committed themselves to a course of action without taking into consideration all the different perspectives and opinions that were available. An example of groupthink in your lifetime was the U.S. war in Iraq. The original official justification for the invasion was that former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was manufacturing weapons of massive destruction (WMDs). However, the Bush administration was widely criticized for not giving equal consideration to different types of information before making its decisions. Specifically, information that supported the assertion that Saddam Hussein was manufacturing WMDs was considered valid and given serious weight, whereas information that countered this assertion tended to be rejected as invalid or based on uninformed testimony. In the end, the military action that resulted from this decision involved the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens and thousands of U.S. soldiers. Now, more than a decade later, no WMDs have been found, and that region remains in turmoil.
Some groups are more susceptible to groupthink than others. Laboratory research revealed that when groupthink occurs, there is often a strong or “directive” leader—specifically, an individual who suppresses dissenters and
encourages the group to consider fewer alternative ideas (Ahlfinger & Esser, 2001). Also, groups in which members are more similar to each other, especially in terms of shared sociopolitical perspectives, are more likely to fall into
groupthink (e.g., Schulz-Hardt et al., 2000).
Module 13.1a Quiz:
The Person and the Situation
Know . . . 1. According to Kurt Lewin, human behaviour is governed by the formula B
= f (P, E). In this formula, E refers to A. environment. B. education. C. ego.
D. extraversion.
Understand . . . 2. The chameleon effect occurs when
A. individuals withdraw from social interactions. B. individuals try to use subtle means of persuasion. C. individuals turn their backs on a group member. D. individuals unintentionally mimic another’s behaviour.
3. Groupthink is least likely to occur when A. group members have very different sociopolitical values. B. group members become excited about their progress. C. a leader emerges who suppresses dissent. D. the group refuses to consider alternatives.
Analyze . . . 4. Which of the following does not explain why social loafing may occur?
A. The individual believes that even if the group succeeds, there will be very little reward in it for each individual group member.
B. The individual believes that the group will fail no matter what his or her contribution is.
C. The individual believes that he or she has little to contribute to a group.
D. The group is engaged in a particularly complicated project.
The Asch Experiments: Conformity
Groupthink can occur easily without a strong leader simply because of conformity pressures that arise spontaneously in groups. Classic experiments on conformity were performed in the 1950s by Solomon Asch. In his now-famous studies, participants were seated at a table along with several other people who
seemed like other participants but who were, in fact, “confederates,” people who were secretly working with the experimenter. Participants and confederates were
asked to look at an image of three lines, and choose which line was the same
length as a “standard line.” The task was designed to be so easy (see Figure 13.1 ) that when people were allowed to give their answers privately, they were correct almost 100% of the time. However, things changed when answers were spoken aloud in front of a group. For the first couple of trials, everybody gave the correct answer, making the participant’s job easy. But then, something weird happened; each of the confederates started giving the same wrong answer, one after another. Then it was the participant’s turn. What would he do? Would he go along with the rest of the group and give the clearly wrong answer? Or would he say what he knew to be the right answer?
Figure 13.1 Perceptual Judgment Task in Asch’s Conformity Studies Which of the comparison lines is the same length as the standard line? In Asch’s experiments, many people conformed to the confederates and gave the wrong answer. Top: Reproduced with permission. Copyright 2015 Scientific American, Inc. All rights reserved.
This is a situation in which unconscious mimicking doesn’t apply, because the
behaviour is very consciously chosen. And, it is not an ambiguous situation at all. However, conformity pressures were strong enough that 75% of people gave the wrong answer on at least one of the 12 trials in which the confederates gave the wrong answer. Each time confederates gave the wrong answer, about one third
of the participants conformed (Asch, 1951, 1955, 1956).
Why would people choose an answer they knew to be wrong? There are two
main types of social influence. Normative influence is the result of social pressure to adopt a group’s perspective in order to be accepted, rather than rejected, by the group. In contrast, informational influence occurs when people feel the group is giving them useful information. Although both types of influence can certainly affect behaviour, there is a big difference between them: informational influence tends to lead to actual belief change (i.e., the person comes to adopt the beliefs of the group), whereas normative influence does not necessarily lead people to privately accept the information that they may, publicly, be demonstrating their agreement with.
In the Asch study, both types of influence seemed to be occurring. For example, some of the conforming participants said afterwards that they thought they had misunderstood something, or that there was some sort of “trick” the others picked up on that they didn’t, because surely the others couldn’t all be wrong if they were all saying the same thing. Other people reported that they didn’t want to stand out or make a scene by being the disagreeable person, so they just went along with the group. In everyday contexts, both types of influence are often at work, making us easily swayed by other people. We will be especially vulnerable to social influence when we are uncertain about the situation, although as Asch showed us, social influence is powerful enough to make us doubt ourselves even when the situation is pretty clear and unambiguous. Many factors work together to determine, in a given situation, the strength of social
influence pressures and whether or not a person ends up conforming (see Table 13.1 ).
Table 13.1 Personal and Situational Factors Contribute to Conformity
People Tend to Be Less Likely to People Tend to Be More Likely to Conform
Conform When . . . When . . .
Only one other person is in the vicinity There is a larger group in the vicinity
There are only male group members There is a high proportion of female group
members
There are only strangers in the room There are friends, family, or acquaintances
in the vicinity
There are extremely clear and simple
tasks
The task is unclear or ambiguous
There is one other nonconformist in the
room
Others conform first
Responses are made anonymously Responses are made publicly
Working the Scientific Literacy Model Examining Why People Conform: Seeing Is Believing
For more than half a century, social psychologists have wondered why subjects in the Asch experiment conformed to the group. Did they consciously choose to conform solely because they didn’t want to incur a social cost by seeming different from everyone else (normative influence), or did the group’s collective opinion actually change the subjects’ own perceptions of the lines (informational influence)? More generally, is it possible that if enough people insist that reality is different from how it appears, then you will actually perceive a different reality?
What do we know about measuring choosing vs. perceiving? The simplest way of assessing why people conform is, of course, to ask them, which Asch did in some of his original studies. However, other research has shown that people often don’t have
accurate insight into their own reasons for doing things (Nisbett & Wilson, 1977). Relying on self-reports only gives insight into the theories people have about their own behaviour, not necessarily the actual reasons why they did what they did.
Recent advances in neuroscience have given researchers the ability to see which areas of the brain are associated with perceptual processes, such as seeing, and processes that more directly involve the self, such as making a choice. If one is consciously making a choice that one knows to be wrong, this should activate parts of the prefrontal cortex that involve executive function abilities, whereas the act of perceiving visual stimuli has its own patterns of activation spread through the frontal, occipital, and parietal cortices. So, in the Asch study, a neurological measurement technique like this might help us to see directly which types of social influence are occurring. One hypothesis could be that informational influence might involve greater activation of visual perception areas of the brain, because subjects are “seeing” the stimulus differently and therefore may be paying special attention to the act of seeing. Conversely, if normative influence is occurring, subjects may activate the executive function areas of the prefrontal cortex, reflecting that they are making intentional choices to override their own knowledge of the right answer, in order to give the socially desirable response. Thus, different patterns of brain activation might shed light on people’s reasons for conforming.
How can science study people’s reasons for conforming, when they may be unaware of the
reasons themselves? In an ingenious study, subjects went through an Asch-like procedure while their brains were being scanned in an fMRI
machine (Berns et al., 2005). Subjects were asked to make judgments about a perceptual task, while also being given information about the perceptions of other people in the experiment, many of which were wrong. The task required subjects to mentally rotate figures in order to determine whether a shape was the same or different from a comparison shape (i.e., like the Asch study, but with shapes instead of lines). Researchers then compared subjects’ brain activation when they conformed to the incorrect judgments of the group vs. when they did not conform but instead stuck to their own independent perceptions.
When subjects conformed, reporting the same judgment as the group, activation occurred in regions of the brain associated with visual perception (i.e., parts of the visual cortex and parietal lobes). This was interpreted to mean that when conforming, these subjects were, in fact, perceiving these stimuli in a different way
—that the difference was in their perceptions. On the other hand, when subjects refused to conform to the group’s incorrect judgments, they activated areas of the amygdala that are
associated with negative emotion (LeDoux, 2000) and with processing social information (Amaral et al., 2003; Singer et al., 2004). This suggests that going against the group’s judgments was an emotionally taxing thing for people to do, involving negative emotion and a heightened social awareness. This may be the brain indicator of the heavy emotional load of standing up for what you believe in.
Can we critically evaluate this evidence? This fascinating study may give us insight into what can happen when people conform to groups, but it leaves wide open the
question of what happens in different situations, including the Asch study. In this study, people were mentally rotating shapes, which is a more challenging task than the line judgments in Asch’s study. Although people’s perceptions on the mental rotation task could be swayed by the group’s judgment, this does not necessarily imply that people’s perceptions on Asch’s much simpler task could also be swayed in the same way. It is important to keep in mind that the different operational details of the experiments, indeed of any experiment, have important implications for how the results should be interpreted.
There are also multiple ways of interpreting the brain-imaging data. For example, in general, people pay more attention to stimuli that are related to emotional responses; so, some of the activity might be related to attention rather than to the emotions associated with conformity (or refusing to conform). In short, it’s not clear from a single study exactly what the activation of specific brain areas means; as with all research, it’s necessary for studies to accumulate and the evidence to converge.
Why is this relevant? This study suggests that when people conform to a group, it can potentially change their basic perceptions about the world at a deep level. This suggests that if enough people say something is true, not only may we go along with the group, we may start to experience the world in the same way. This study also suggests that going against the group, standing up for what you believe, can be a threatening experience, requiring us to experience difficult emotions like fear.
Empowering people to resist the influence of destructive groups or authority figures is a huge puzzle science is still trying to solve. Many forces operate together, some seemingly positive and some seemingly negative, all influencing how empowered a person feels to go against a group. For example, resisting social
influence is likely related to one’s own confidence and self- esteem, expertise, social status, authority, moral conviction, prejudice against the group, the status or desirability of the group, and undoubtedly many other factors that influence how the person feels in that particular moment. Although social psychologists now have a pretty good understanding of how these factors operate, we obviously have a long way to go in our society before we can apply this knowledge fully and effectively.
Follow-up experiments to the Asch study illuminated two additional, very important aspects of conformity situations. First, there is a fascinating relationship between conformity rates and the size of the group. Asch found very low conformity if only one or two people gave a wrong answer. But once there are three or more people, conformity rates shoot up to their maximum level
(Asch, 1951); it only takes a few people to exert “group pressure.”
This finding has deep implications for our understanding of how group norms operate in our everyday lives. Group norms are not just abstract, overarching cultural forces that affect all of us in every situation. Instead, group norms are created spontaneously in each situation. Whenever a few people get together, they establish implicit norms that govern the behaviour of the people in the group. For example, think of the norms that are transmitted as people laugh at a demeaning joke; as co-workers pass along malicious gossip; as a boy is cheered on for eating his seventh slice of pizza while a girl is looked at askance when she loads up her plate a buffet; as kids turn away from a child in the schoolyard who is being bullied or laughed at; as friends laugh at someone’s story about how much alcohol they drank before “somehow” managing to drive home.
Now, think about how these situations can be different when people speak up and say they are offended by racist jokes; when co-workers create cultures of support instead of gossip; when both boys and girls are encouraged to eat healthily and love their bodies; when people stand up together against a bully; and when people make sure their friends are sober before they let them get
behind the wheel. The norms that operate in our everyday lives can make such a big difference.
The second important finding to come out of the Asch studies was that even though groups are powerful, individuals can also be very powerful. In some variations of Asch’s studies, one of the confederates would also give the right answer, going against the rest of the group. This single dissenting voice was enough to shatter the group’s power, reducing the rate of conformity to one
quarter of its original level (Asch, 1955). This shows that groups are most powerful when they are unanimous, but a single person’s courage can burst that bubble and liberate the voices of others who may privately disagree with the group. This is a key reason why it is so important to speak out about what you believe in.
It’s important for people to realize how much power they wield as individuals, because when you are caught in a situation of group pressure, the pressures can indeed feel enormously powerful. For example, with regards to the Abu Ghraib abuses discussed earlier, it is important to understand the normative pressures that were in operation. For example, there is a strong culture in the military of not questioning orders and maintaining solidarity in the ranks; these sorts of pressures create a culture of conformity, maximizing the likelihood of outcomes like groupthink. In such an environment, it can seem awfully hard to go against the group, and as we discussed, Joe Darby was afraid of what would happen if others knew he was the whistleblower. However, once his identity was revealed, his fellow soldiers expressed widespread support and appreciation for his courage. They had also been harbouring their own private disapproval of what was happening, but they were unwilling to be “the only one” to come forward.
Module 13.1b Quiz: The Asch Experiments: Conformity
Know . . .
1. Social pressure to adopt a group’s perspective in order to be accepted,
rather than rejected, by the group is known as . A. normative influence B. social cognitive influence C. informational influence D. sociocultural influence
Apply . . .
2. Which of the following is a reasonable conclusion to draw from the Asch studies?
A. Conformity pressures are so powerful that it is almost impossible to help people stand up against a group’s majority opinion.
B. Conformity always happens because people simply choose to agree with the group just to fit in; conformity can never, however, lead people to privately accept a group’s perspective.
C. People will conform in most situations that involve a great deal of uncertainty; but when people are certain of what is “right,” most will disagree with the group if the group holds a different opinion from them.
D. Even a single individual has a great deal of power in group settings, because by being willing to publicly disagree with the group, conformity pressures are significantly reduced for others.
3. Diane was a member of her university’s student union. The members of the union were debating whether to continue funding the university’s daycare, which was losing money. Diane wanted to continue providing money to the daycare, yet found that other members of the council wanted to close it. If Diane behaved similarly to the participants in Asch’s conformity experiments, which response will she most likely make?
A. Diane will vote to continue funding the daycare, even if she is the only person voting that way.
B. Diane will lose her motivation to be a part of the students’ union. C. If another member of the students’ council also objects to closing
the daycare, Diane will vote to keep it open.
D. Diane will side with the President of the student union in order to
ensure that she is on the same side as the most powerful member of the group.
The Bystander Effect: Situational Influences on Helping Behaviour
One of the most powerful examinations of the ways that social situations influence us has been the study of helping behaviour. Although all of us would like to live in a society in which people will help us when we need it, the truth is often, sadly, quite different.
One tragic example of this, which has become famous in our culture, unfolded in the middle of a cold night, on March 13, 1964. A young woman, Kitty Genovese, was physically assaulted outside an apartment complex in New York City. She screamed and made enough noise that many people (38, it was later revealed) came to their windows to try to see what was going on. One person shouted through his window, which scared the attacker off, and Kitty stumbled around the corner of the building, out of sight of most of the residents. The attacker then returned and attacked her again, stabbing and sexually assaulting her. In total, her ordeal lasted more than half an hour. When the police were finally called, it was too late to save Kitty’s life.
A couple of weeks later, The New York Times published a front-page article, with the headline, “37 Who Saw Murder Didn’t Call the Police. Apathy at Stabbing of Queens Woman Shocks Inspector.” People were shocked and outraged that so many could have allowed a young woman to be assaulted without lifting a finger to help her. How is it possible that not one person intervened? Have we become so selfish and disconnected from each other that we don’t get involved even when someone’s life is on the line?
Kitty Genovese: Her tragic murder in 1964 led to groundbreaking studies on the bystander effect. New York Daily News/Getty Images
Before continuing, we should mention that several decades later, it has been revealed that the murder did not really occur the way it was reported, and the way that most psychology textbooks have repeated ever since. It seemed that only a few of the residents had been able to see anything in the parking lot, and only for a few moments. It was not clear to the residents exactly what was going
on, so their inability to act could have, in many cases, been due to simple uncertainty, not realizing for sure that a crime was occurring. After all, when you live in a highly populated urban area, it is not uncommon to hear noises, including shouting, in the middle of the night, and you can’t be calling the police every time someone shouts and yells on the street for a minute. So, some of the apparent apathy could have been due to confusion and uncertainty, rather than a lack of caring. Also, it was reported later that some of the residents apparently did try to phone the police, so it may have been a mistake to conclude that
“nobody” tried to help (Manning et al., 2007).
Nevertheless, the horrifying belief that so many people could have stood by doing nothing while a woman was murdered launched an important line of
research that found similar effects in many different situations. The bystander effect describes the counterintuitive finding that the presence of other people actually reduces the likelihood of helping behaviour. This is counterintuitive because, usually, one would assume that if there is a certain chance of one person doing something, like helping, then the more people that are around, the
greater the cumulative chance should be that someone will help. However, it seems in many cases that as the number of people in a situation increases, helping rates actually decrease!
There are different explanations for the bystander effect in different situations.
The first was offered by social psychologists Bibb Latané and John Darley (1968) after the Genovese murder. They suggested a rather surprising theory that ran counter to common intuitions. What if the thing that everybody found so surprising was actually the explanation? Instead of being surprised that nobody intervened despite the large number of people at their windows, what if nobody
intervened in the situation because there were so many people involved?
Consider the perspective of each person, standing by their window that night in New York in 1964, looking out at a dark parking lot where they heard shouting. They likely wondered, “What’s going on? Is it serious? Is it two people having a relationship argument? Is it a drunken argument between friends? Or merely people having fun and yelling as some sort of prank? Should I do something, like call the police? Is that maybe a bit excessive? Or does the situation warrant it?
I’m not exactly sure what’s happening . . . maybe I’ll wait a minute and see if I get a better sense of what’s happening. . . . Hey, look at all the other people standing at their windows.” And then, the critical moment happens—they conclude, “Someone else has probably called the police,” or “Someone else probably has a better sense of what’s happening,” or they may even (somewhat selfishly) think, “I don’t really want to get involved . . . but look, someone else will do it.”
The problem is, of course, that if everybody thinks someone else will take on the responsibility of helping, nobody will do anything. Latané and Darley called this diffusion of responsibility , the reduced personal responsibility that a person feels when more people are present in a situation (Figure 13.2 ).
Figure 13.2 Diffusion of Responsibility If one person witnesses an emergency, it is as if 100% of the responsibility for helping falls on that person. If 10 people witness an emergency, that responsibility is diffused, so it is as if each person feels only 10% of the responsibility—which may not be enough to motivate a person to act.
Other studies have explored this effect by simulating emergencies. For example, in one study, subjects believed they were interacting with other people who were in different rooms in the experiment, talking over an intercom system. One of the
other voices on the intercom started to clearly have a seizure and require some help (this was, of course, not real, but subjects didn’t know that). In one condition of the experiment, participants interacted with the other person alone and nobody else was available to help. In other conditions, participants believed there were other participants sitting at other intercom terminals, who were all available to help. Consistent with diffusion of responsibility, people took longer to react to the calls for help, the more people they believed were available to
respond (Latané & Darley, 1968). The take-home message is that the more people there are in a situation, the more likely it is that any one person will assume “someone else will do it.”
The second explanation offered for the bystander effect is that there is often a mismatch between the public behaviour that people display and the private
beliefs or thoughts the people may be having. As a result, the social norms operating in the situation (i.e., the expressions of people’s public behaviour), may be quite different from the actual beliefs held by the people themselves; this is called pluralistic ignorance .
Pluralistic ignorance is one of the most powerful factors invisibly shaping our lives, and indeed our society. It operates in many different situations: racist jokes and comments that people don’t react to; political decisions or corporate policies that others don’t express their disapproval of; a child being bullied and taunted on the playground that nobody stands up for; unjust social practices that the general public passively accepts and allows to continue.
In fact, pluralistic ignorance could potentially be so powerful that it becomes a group norm, which then governs the behaviour of individual people within the group, even though nobody in the group actually agrees with the group norm. Think of how messed up that is! A group could pressure people to do things that each group member, privately, disagrees with. Of course, what likely happens in most real-world situations is that pluralistic ignorance and social influence (e.g., power, authority, etc.) work together so that a few people in a group can impose their values or perspectives onto the group, and then pluralistic ignorance works to keep everyone else from expressing their true thoughts and feelings. As a result, it only takes a few people to “steer” the behaviour of most others, and
once those few people have power, it can be hard for the other group members to make change happen.
The bystander effect, diffusion of responsibility, and pluralistic ignorance can often work together to ensure that people who need help don’t get it.
A key reason why pluralistic ignorance happens is simply that when we are out in the public sphere, the normative adult behaviour is to “play it cool.” Most adults adopt expressions of general neutrality, most of the time, and you only have to walk down the street for two minutes to test this out. Obviously, there are many exceptions, but few adults are as constantly goofy, emotionally volatile, and expressive as, say, your average 3-year-old (which, to be honest, is probably a good thing). As a result, the immediate impression that people give, most of the time, is “I’m cool, and everything is fine,” or as the common meme goes, keep calm and carry on.
One classic study of pluralistic ignorance demonstrated the power of this
tendency for people to remain expressively restrained, even to the point that they would put their lives in potential peril. Imagine being a subject in this study: You are sitting in a room, filling out questionnaires; suddenly you notice a little bit of smoke, wafting into the room from a vent. What do you do?
Your intuition probably tells you that you would get up and check it out, especially if the smoke didn’t stop. You would go over and smell it, perhaps look outside the room, or maybe find the experimenter to report it. Especially if the smoke continued to build, minute after minute, you would take some action. We all learned when we were kids how to get out of burning buildings, right?
If you are sitting in this room all by yourself, then your intuition is probably right. But what if you are sitting in the room with other people? This changes things, doesn’t it? You might not want to embarrass yourself by jumping up right away. After all, maybe the smoke is just mist from a broken air conditioner or something equally benign.
So, in this situation, you pause, considering what to do, looking out of the corner of your eyes at the others in the room. But everyone else isn’t responding either; they are just filling out their questionnaires, perhaps occasionally looking around as well, but “playing it cool.” It’s possible that every single person is privately thinking, “There might be a fire!” but publicly, each person is displaying no evidence of their private concerns, so they all sit there while smoke continues to fill up the room.
Exactly this pattern of behaviour was observed in the rather incredible “smoke-
filled room study” (Latané & Darley, 1968), which had subjects go through the experience just described. Most subjects (75%) who sat in the smoky room by themselves got up to investigate within six minutes, but if the subjects were in a room with two other people who gave no indication of being concerned about the smoke, only 10% of the subjects took action to investigate. In a specific crisis situation in which people would normally help or take action, the mere presence of other people sets up various social forces that can prevent people from doing
so, including embarrassment (Karakashian et al., 2006), pluralistic ignorance (Prentice & Miller, 1993), and diffusion of responsibility (Darley & Latané,
1968).
So if YOU are ever in an emergency situation and need someone’s help, it is important to cut through any confusion, pluralistic ignorance, or diffusion of
responsibility (Schroeder et al., 1995). If possible, clearly ask for help, from a specific person, with a specific command: “Hey you! In the red shirt! I need help! Call 911!” (Or whatever specific behaviour you need.)
Module 13.1c Quiz: The Bystander Effect
Know . . .
1. The reduced personal responsibility that a person feels in a situation when more people are present is known as .
A. diffusion of responsibility B. conformity C. the bystander effect D. pluralistic ignorance
Understand . . .
2. Which of the following is the most plausible explanation for the bystander effect?
A. There are more people who simply do not care enough to help others than originally thought.
B. People fear embarrassment that could come from helping another person.
C. The person in need is likely to be unrelated, and nonrelatives are not worth helping.
D. Bystanders refuse to help because of their own experiences; when they were in need, nobody helped them.
Apply . . .
3. Darcey made a racist joke to a group of people at a party. Although Megan was a member of an anti-racism committee at her school, she
didn’t raise any objection to the joke. This is an example of . A. bystander apathy B. pluralistic ignorance C. the chameleon effect D. groupthink
Social Roles and Obedience
In contrast to social norms, which are general rules that apply to members of a
group, social roles are more specific sets of expectations for how someone in a specific position should behave. The key word here is “specific.” Roles emerge within a specific position in society—such as professor, student, parent, and prison guard—because the rest of society expects the person to behave in accordance with the role. In a sense, the person’s individuality gets subsumed by the role, and what they might freely choose to do takes a back seat to what society expects of someone in that role. Roles can be incredibly powerful, leading people to do things they would never believe themselves capable of.
World War II had a major influence on the field of social psychology, particularly in bringing the concept of social roles to the forefront of study. The Holocaust was extremely troubling; how could seemingly ordinary people condone, and in many cases take part in, the state-sanctioned killing of millions of Jewish people, gypsies, homosexuals, and political dissidents? It seemed like only truly disturbed individuals would be willing to engage in such atrocities. The work of two psychologists changed this view, however, and showed us that social roles can have a powerful effect on our behaviour.
The Stanford Prison Study
In 1971, Philip Zimbardo, a social psychologist at Stanford University, wanted to study the impact that situations could have on people. Would otherwise “good”
people do “bad” things if placed in a bad situation? He placed an ad in the paper asking for volunteers for a prison simulation experiment. After giving the respondents a battery of psychological tests, Zimbardo selected the most psychologically stable people to be participants. He then randomly assigned nine to take on the role of prison guards, and nine to become prisoners.
The study began dramatically, as the police arrested the new “prisoners” outside of their homes, in full view of their neighbours. (Zimbardo enlisted the help of the local police department to help maximize the realism of this part of his study.) These newly arrested men were taken to the police station, where they were fingerprinted and held in a cell, then blindfolded and transferred to the basement of Stanford University’s Psychology Department. Zimbardo had transformed the basement into a simulated prison, complete with cells with barred doors and cots for sleeping. The prisoners were strip-searched and sprayed with de-lousing spray, then given a smock to wear (with no underwear), a nylon stocking for their heads, a chain around their ankles, and an ID number, which was to be their only personal identification while in the study (i.e., they couldn’t use their names anymore). The guards were given uniforms, and were given authority to oversee the daily lives of the prisoners. And thus the study began.
What happened next took everybody by surprise. By the morning of the second day, the situation had started to deteriorate to the point that the prisoners staged a rebellion and refused to cooperate with the guards. The guards responded with force, blasting the prisoners with spray from a fire extinguisher, and physically subduing them. The stress was so intense that within the first 36 hours of the experiment, one of the prisoners completely broke down, exhibiting such severe signs of emotional distress that he was taken out of the study.
The prisoners quickly became absorbed into their roles, following the guards’ orders, trying to avoid punishment, referring to themselves only with ID numbers instead of their names, and generally trying to adapt as well as they could to their situation. The guards also fell into their roles, quickly starting to treat the prisoners with disrespect, engaging in ever-escalating tactics of control and humiliation. Prisoners were made to do push-ups and their sleep was interrupted for “counts” during which they had to line up and say their ID numbers, for up to
a few hours at a time. Guards mocked and verbally harassed the prisoners, forced them to clean toilets with their bare hands, controlled when the prisoners were allowed to use the toilet, and even played humiliating, sexually degrading games. For prisoners who were rebellious or difficult, the guards set up a solitary confinement cell in what had previously been a broom closet.
Volunteers were randomly assigned to play guards or prisoners in the Stanford Prison Study in 1971. Each group took their roles so seriously, and their behaviours degraded so quickly, that the researchers called off the experiment before it was even halfway completed. Philip G. Zimbardo, Inc.
Zimbardo himself, who had assumed the title of Prison Superintendent, also fell into his role. As he freely admits, he quickly lost his more objective perspective as a psychologist running a study, and instead started to view it as “his prison”
containing “prisoners and guards,” not young men from the community who were research participants.
The situation took a serious toll on the prisoners; many exhibited stress-related symptoms including screaming, crying, even becoming ill. Amazingly, although at least 50 outside observers were allowed to see what was going on, nobody questioned the ethics or expressed significant concern for the prisoners, until one graduate student, upon seeing the prisoners being marched down the hall on a “toilet run” with sacks over their heads, confronted Zimbardo with the unethical nature of the study. At that point, Zimbardo realized things had gotten out of hand and called off the study, a mere six days into the planned two-week simulation of prison life.
The Stanford Prison Study could not be repeated today due to the ethical standards that have since come into force. Nevertheless, it remains a stunning example of the power of social roles and how they play out in specific situations. A social role, even one that is randomly assigned, can make otherwise bright, well-adjusted people do things that they would never dream possible for themselves. You can likely see the connection between the Stanford experiment and the tragedies of Abu Ghraib. In both cases, a host of situational factors encouraged brutal behaviour. This is the power of the situation. However, as we discussed earlier, situational forces don’t deserve all the blame; in both Abu Ghraib and Zimbardo’s prison study, not all people were affected equally. In Abu Ghraib, only relatively few soldiers appear to have committed the majority of the documented abuses. In Zimbardo’s study, some people took on their role as guards with far more sadism than others, whereas other guards treated the prisoners more kindly. Understanding precisely what personal factors lead people to be better able to resist destructive situations is a key focus in the field today.
Obedience to Authority: The Milgram Experiment
One additional factor in Abu Ghraib was the military command structure. Prison guards were often given orders to “soften up” the detainees for questioning; softening up implied a variety of tactics, including general harassment and rough
treatment, humiliating prisoners by forcing them to be naked and put in compromising positions, terrorizing prisoners with attack dogs and electrical cables, and committing outright physical torture, including brutal water-boarding and other practices too awful to describe here. The fact that such horrendous things happened is a grim reminder of just how powerful social influence factors can be.
Most of us, however, believe that we would never do such things, no matter how powerful the situation. If we were asked to harm somebody against their will, and we disagreed with it, we would say no. Right? The Milgram obedience
experiments (1963, 1974) thoroughly shattered our ability to legitimately hold this belief. In his now-famous studies, Stanley Milgram showed the world just how powerful authority could be, and how easily otherwise good, normal people could be made to do something horrific, something that probably none of us would believe ourselves willing to do.
Consider what happened in Milgram’s study:
Participants are told the study is about the effects of punishment on memory. They, and the other supposed participant (who is actually a confederate), a friendly middle-aged man, draw slips of paper in order to determine who will be the “teacher” and who will be the “learner.” The draw is secretly rigged so that the participants are always the teacher.
The teacher’s job is to read a series of word pairs to the learner, and then to test him on his memory of the word pairs. The learner will be in a separate room hooked up to an electric shock machine. Each time the learner gets an answer wrong, the teacher is to administer a shock by flipping a switch on a panel in front of him, and increasing the voltage after each wrong answer. The switches go up by 15 volts until reaching a maximum of 450 volts, which is labelled “xxx.” This process is watched by “the experimenter,” a man wearing a lab coat.
As the experiment progresses, the learner starts to make sounds of discomfort in the other room, grunting audibly as he is shocked. By 150 volts he is protesting loudly and saying that he no longer wants to continue in the study. If the subjects continue reading the word pairs and increasing the
shock level, the learner gets to the point of screaming in pain, demanding and pleading, over and over again, to be let out, pleading that he can’t take it anymore, even that his heart condition is bothering him and his heart is acting up. And then, at 330 volts, the learner falls silent and gives no further responses. At this point, subjects are informed by the experimenter that a non-response is to be considered “wrong,” and the punishing shock is to be administered.
If, at any point, subjects express concern for the learner, or say that they don’t want to continue, the experimenter simply says a few stock responses, such as “Please continue” or, “The experiment requires that you continue.”
The “shock generator” that the teacher operated, purportedly to punish the learner. From the film Obedience © 1968 by Stanley Milgram, © renewed 1993 by Alexandra Milgram, and distributed by Penn State
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The “learner” gets set up to participate in the experiment. He is being hooked up to the device that the teacher believes will deliver a shock. From the film Obedience © 1968 by Stanley Milgram, © renewed 1993 by Alexandra Milgram, and distributed by Penn State
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The experimenter explains to the “teacher” what the experimental procedure entails and how to use the shock generator. From the film Obedience © 1968 by Stanley Milgram. © renewed 1993 by Alexandra Milgram, distributed by Penn State
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Although most subjects were highly obedient, some, such as this person, refused to continue complying with the experimenter’s orders. From the film Obedience © 1968 by Stanley Milgram. © renewed 1993 by Alexandra Milgram, distributed by Penn State
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Now, let’s step back for a moment and put the situation in perspective. As part of a psychology experiment, people are asked to shock a person in another room and ignore this person as he expresses increasing discomfort, screams repeatedly, begs and pleads to be let out of the experiment, angrily refuses to continue, indicates that he might be having a heart attack, and eventually falls completely silent. And there is no compelling reason for people to continue, except a man in a lab coat telling them to do so. This seems absurd, when you stop and think about it. Surely almost nobody would actually do such a thing!
What would you do? If you are like most people, you probably feel that you would refuse to continue whenever the “learner” said that he didn’t want to continue (which happened quite early, 150 volts). The moment the other person withdraws consent, you would stop, right?
Careful analyses across many replications of the Milgram study concluded that
this moment of decision making is, in fact, the critical point (Packer, 2008). This is the moment when more subjects disobey the experimenter than any other moment. This is the point at which the true moral conflict becomes clear, between the rights and safety of the learner versus the authority of the experimenter. It is heartening that this is a choice point at which many people choose to follow their morals and disobey the experimenter.
But overall, the story is actually pretty grim. Even though some people rebelled at this point, the large majority of subjects actually continued, despite the protestations of the learner, who would have been, quite literally, a victim of abuse if this were a real situation. It is worth really stopping and thinking about this for a moment, because this finding is truly astonishing—most of the subjects, across all the replications of these experiments, chose to harm another person who had withdrawn consent, simply because an “authority figure” told them to.
It’s important to point out that subjects were not sadistic torturers, gleefully putting the learner through misery. Subjects were deeply distressed themselves, and most of them, many times, over and over, tried to stop the experiment, telling the experimenter they didn’t want to continue, arguing with him, and so on. But the experimenter was implacable, refusing to take no for an answer and just insisting that they continue. The experimenter forced subjects into a situation
where “just saying no” wasn’t enough; they had to insist, even beyond the point of being polite. It is quite telling that many of the participants in Milgram’s study found it difficult to resist the experimenter because they didn’t want to seem rude, and were simply uncomfortable disagreeing with someone so emphatically and taking action. This embarrassment held people back, astonishingly having more power than the man in the other room, literally screaming and begging to be let out of the experiment.
But, surely you wouldn’t go all the way to the end, shocking that poor man, potentially to death . . . would you? This is one of the most unbelievable findings in the history of psychology. Milgram found that two out of every three people (65% to be exact) would do just that—slowly electrocute an innocent, desperately protesting man into oblivion, simply because a psychology experimenter insisted that they do so.
Most people would never expect this outcome, believing “the average person” to be far more ethical and able to do the right thing, when it came to a life or death situation. Indeed, a group of psychiatrists at Yale University were asked to predict ahead of time how many people would obey all the way to the end of the experiment, and they estimated it would be about 1 in 1000—the base rate of
sadistic or psychopathic individuals in the population (Milgram, 1974). Also, the experimental sessions were observed by numerous people through one-way mirrors, who were unequivocally surprised and appalled at the subjects’ failure to effectively rebel.
Subjects in this experiment were clearly distressed by what they were doing to the learner. They became very tense and frequently turned to the experimenter, saying that they didn’t want to continue, expressing concern for the learner, even worrying that they might be killing him. But time and time again, they ended up following the experimenter’s commands, turned back to the shock machine, and increased the voltage.
Milgram wrote,
In a large number of cases, the degree of tension reached extremes that are rarely
seen in sociopsychological laboratory studies. Subjects were observed to sweat,
tremble, stutter, bite their lips, groan, and dig their fingernails into their flesh. These
were characteristic rather than exceptional responses. . . . At one point he (one of the
participants) pushed his fist into his forehead and muttered, “Oh God, let’s stop it.” And
yet he continued to respond to every word of the experimenter, and obeyed to the end. .
. . I observed a mature and initially poised businessman enter the laboratory smiling and
confident. Within 20 minutes he was reduced to a twitching, shuddering wreck, who was
rapidly approaching nervous collapse. . . . (1963, p. 371–378)
Clearly, it was not easy for the subjects to commit harm to another person, but it was even more difficult to break out of the power of the situation and refuse to obey.
Interestingly, Milgram ran other variants of this experiment, trying to see what might change obedience rates. Milgram tried to reduce the situational pressure in several ways, such as having the experimenter deliver his orders from a different location using the telephone, or reducing the stature and reputation of the authority figure by holding the experiment in a private company’s downtown commercial space rather than at prestigious Yale University.
Milgram also tried to increase the personal directness with which subjects would experience the learner’s distress, such as by having subjects and learners in the same room so that subjects had to watch the learner shout and writhe in pain. In one condition, subjects even had to physically force the learner’s hand onto a shock plate while the learner struggled. Astonishingly, although the rates of obedience are somewhat lower, they remain disturbingly high. The fact that 30% of us would physically force a struggling person to receive pain against his will is disturbing, to say the least.
There were two especially interesting and powerful variations. One experiment looked at whether it is easier for a group to resist the experimenter, pitting the power of the group against the power of authority. In this experiment, there were three teachers making decisions collectively. Two of the teachers were confederates, pretending to be real subjects; the other teacher was the actual subject. When the two confederate teachers would make the decision to not continue with the experiment, 90% of subjects also refused. (We would note that it seems surprising that only 90% of them refused, leaving a full 10% of people still obeying the experimenter to the bitter end. Still, 10% obedience is a far cry from the 65% of the original study.) This particular variation is important because it illustrates again the power of dissent. As in the Asch study, if even a couple of people are courageous enough to fight for what is “right,” they make it much easier for others to do the same.
Then there is one final condition, examining a crucial explanation that has been given for the Holocaust, known as the Eichmann factor. Adolf Eichmann was one of the central administrators of the Holocaust of WWII, in charge of overseeing the transportation of Jewish people who were deported to the concentration camps to be executed. In his famous trial for war crimes in 1962, Eichmann’s defence was, essentially, that he was a mere bureaucrat. He didn’t have any real power, but just performed menial tasks, not understanding or being responsible for the larger enterprise. In other words, he was a paper pusher, not a war criminal. He didn’t actually cause harm to people. He merely organized train schedules and such things; he was “just doing his job.” This led sociologist Hannah Arendt to coin the term “the banality of evil,” describing the theory that oftentimes, much of the individual behaviour that allows for great harm to be perpetrated, often is not carried out by evil monsters out of malice and hatred, but instead, by rather ordinary people, doing jobs far removed from their ultimate consequence, who are merely caught up in a much larger system.
This final Milgram experiment quite chillingly examines one part of the “banality of evil,” the removal of the individual’s actions from the ultimate consequences (e.g., Eichmann organizing train schedules, not actually marching people into gas chambers). To simulate this, subjects only had to read the word pairs to the learner; it was another person who actually threw the switches to deliver the electric shocks. This allowed subjects to feel even less responsible. By splitting the process into multiple components, with multiple people involved in different ways, it was easy for each individual to feel not responsible, and not powerful enough to do anything about it. The result was that 92.5% (37/40) of subjects obeyed the experimenter right to the end. Here’s the power of authority combining with “diffusion of responsibility,” and the results are, frankly, horrific.
Milgram himself believed that these studies provided insight into the horrors of the Holocaust, particularly how so many millions of people could be “evil” enough to willingly participate in the Nazi death machine, or to stand passively by while such a brutal genocide took place.
The simple, yet profound, insight from the Milgram study is that it’s not a question of people being good or evil; it’s a question of the power of social
situations. It is, in fact, not difficult to construct situations that are powerful enough to overwhelm even the deep moral convictions and courage of most people. As Milgram noted, “This is, perhaps, the most fundamental lesson of our study: Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority”
(2009).
In sum, situational forces can exert immense pressure on individuals, making an analysis of personal responsibility very tricky. However, social psychologists would generally agree that, in the final analysis, people are responsible for their behaviours. No matter how powerful the situational forces may be, individuals can always resist them and make a free choice, and history is full of examples of such courageous behaviour. In fact, one of Dr. Zimbardo’s most recent projects,
the Heroic Imagination Project (heroicimagination.org), is focused on understanding the factors that lead people to behave heroically. It is hoped that by unlocking the secrets of heroism, courage, and compassion, we can help society evolve in a healthier direction, and potentially avoid future atrocities.
Module 13.1d Quiz:
Social Roles and Obedience
Know . . . 1. is complying with instructions from an individual who has
authority.
A. Obedience B. Groupthink C. Conformity D. Mimicry
Understand . . . 2. How did the Stanford Prison Study researchers come to the conclusion
that roles, and not individual personalities, were the main influence on the volunteers’ behaviour?
A. The volunteer “prison guards” were specifically instructed to respond brutally.
B. The “prisoners” were actually actors hired by the researchers. C. The prisoners and prison guards were psychologically similar
prior to the start of the experience.
D. The researchers actually believed that personality is more important than social roles.
Apply . . . 3. According to variations of the Milgram experiment,
A. women are much more obedient to authority figures than men are.
B. most of the power of the situation was the general reputation of Yale as an institution; people assumed that the consequences of the shocks couldn’t be too terrible, because it was, after all, happening at Yale.
C. people are much less obedient now than they were shortly after World War II; so, Milgram’s findings are historically important, but are not relevant to modern generations.
D. one of the most effective ways to get people to disobey an authority figure is to make sure they have some companions who will do it too.
Module 13.1 Summary
bystander effect
chameleon effect
diffusion of responsibility
groupthink
Know . . . the key terminology associated with social influence.13.1a
informational influence
mimicry
normative influence
pluralistic ignorance
social facilitation
social loafing
social norms
social roles
At its most basic level, conforming begins with mimicry, in which people simply imitate others’ behaviours. Mimicry seems to help form social bonds and encourages prosocial, helping behaviour. Conformity usually describes the way an individual’s more complex behaviours evolve to become like the behaviours of the group. People may conform because they want to be accepted by the group, or they may conform because the group’s way of perceiving reality actually influences the person’s own perceptions.
In many different situations, other people can change how we behave. In helping situations, the presence of others tends to decrease the likelihood that someone will help another in distress. In other situations, the presence of even a few more people can set up conformity pressures that influence us to behave like the others in the group. Interestingly, these conformity pressures can be largely eliminated in at least some situations if even a single individual is willing to go against the group and break its unanimity. In many situations we are placed into social roles and feel like we have to live up to the responsibilities of that role, even if we would normally behave differently. When authority figures are
Understand . . . why individuals conform to others’ behaviours.13.1b
Understand . . . how individuals and groups can influence behaviours.
13.1c
involved, these social pressures can become even more powerful—so powerful that many people cannot resist complying.
People are least likely to help if they don’t feel personally responsible for taking action, if they are unsure what to do to help, or if they are unsure whether the situation is a genuine emergency. Thus, you can best ensure that others will help you if you make very clear that it’s an emergency and you need help, if you make a specific person responsible for helping, and if you tell that person exactly what he or she needs to do.
Behaviour is a function of the person and the situation. Therefore it is impossible to say in general the extent to which guards who participate in abuse are driven by their own character traits or by situational forces. A full analysis must take both sets of factors into consideration. Clearly though, in situations in which people are pressured to abuse prisoners, peer pressure is exerted through the expectations and behaviours of others, and the authorities in charge condone the abuse, it becomes far more likely that some guards will become abusive. Nevertheless, even the strictest social psychological analysis would never remove the final responsibility from the person; no matter the situation, we can always choose how to respond.
Apply . . . your knowledge of the bystander effect to ensure that you will be helped if you are in an emergency.
13.1d
Analyze . . . whether guards who participate in abuse are inherently bad people, or if their behaviour is the product of social influences.
13.1e
Module 13.2 Social Cognition
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Learning Objectives
One February night in 1999, four New York City plainclothes police
Know . . . the key terminology associated with social cognition. Understand . . . how we form first impressions and how these impressions influence us. Apply . . . your understanding of social cognition to the problem of overcoming prejudice and discrimination. Analyze . . . whether people who commit discriminatory acts are necessarily prejudiced.
13.2a 13.2b
13.2c
13.2d
officers were patrolling a Bronx neighbourhood when they saw a lone man on the street. The officers thought he was behaving suspiciously, so they decided to question him. Upon orders from the police to stop, the man ducked into the vestibule of an apartment building, reaching for the door with one hand and putting the other into his pocket. Officers feared he was reaching for a gun. One officer opened fire on the man, and the other three followed, firing a total of 41 shots, 19 of which hit the man and killed him on the spot.
Tragically, the victim of the shooting was a peaceful and unarmed 24- year-old man named Amadou Diallo. By all accounts, Diallo was a friendly, industrious, and law-abiding man from Guinea, West Africa, who had come to New York in hopes of attaining a college education. He had turned away from the police presumably because he didn’t know they were police (they were not in uniform and were driving an unmarked car); besides, whenever four guys jump out of a car in the middle of the night in the Bronx and start yelling and running toward you, running into the safety of your home is a sensible thing to do. His hand went into his pocket because he was reaching for his wallet.
Much of New York was in an uproar over the shooting, and the turmoil was only heightened after the four police officers were found not guilty of any criminal wrongdoing in court. Half of all New Yorkers disagreed with the verdict, and that figure reached almost 80% among Africans and
African Americans (Connelly, 2000). People of all backgrounds attributed the shooting to hostile prejudice. On the other hand, many other people and most police officers defended the actions of the four officers, blaming the stressful environment in which they work and the need for them to make a snap decision in a potentially life-threatening situation.
Was prejudice an issue in Diallo’s death? If he had been a White man, would the same thing have happened? In recent years, these same questions have played a major role in North American society, with notable movements Idle No More and #BlackLivesMatter creating not only robust and healthy communities, but also a massive increase in public awareness, boots-on-the-streets activism, and meaningful political
dialogue and change.
Central to issues of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and all other forms of discrimination, is understanding how human beings actually do process information about the social world, and how stereotypes, prejudice and other social processes influence people’s perceptions and behaviours. These are the questions we explore in this module.
Focus Questions
1. How do we make judgments and form impressions about other people?
2. Can stereotypes affect our behaviour in ways that we are unaware of? Could such processes have played a role in the killing of Amadou Diallo?
The field of social-cognitive psychology is a fusion of social psychology’s emphasis on social situations and cognitive psychology’s emphasis on cognitions (perceptions, thoughts, and beliefs). Social-cognitive researchers study the cognitions that people have about social situations, and how situations influence cognitive processes. It is an exciting area to study because it deals directly with the everyday social experiences we encounter in our lives.
One of the central ideas in this field is that there are two major types of processes in our consciousness: explicit processes and implicit processes. Explicit processes , which correspond roughly to “conscious” thought, are deliberative, effortful, relatively slow, and generally under our intentional control. This explicit level of consciousness is our subjective inner awareness, our “mind”
as we know it. Implicit processes comprise our “unconscious” thought; they are intuitive, automatic, effortless, very fast, and operate largely outside of our intentional control. The implicit level of consciousness is the larger set of patterns that govern how our mind generally functions—all the “lower-level” processes
that comprise the vast bulk of what our brains actually do (Chaiken & Trope,
1999; Kahneman, 2003; Todorov et al., 2005).
These two sets of processes work together to regulate our bodies, continually update our perceptions, infuse emotional evaluations and layers of personal meaning to our experiences, and affect how we think, make decisions, and self- reflect. But not only do these two sets of processes carry out their independent functions, they also can influence each other. For example, explicit processes influence implicit processes when our beliefs (e.g., my friend Bob is a kind person!) influence how we process information (e.g., how much attention we pay to Bob’s positive and negative behaviours). On the other hand, implicit processes can influence explicit processes, such as when our automatic tendency to categorize a person into a stereotyped group influences the judgments we make about that person. Explicit and implicit processes are intertwined, each influencing the other as we navigate the social world. In social-cognitive
psychology, models of behaviour that account for both implicit and explicit processes are called dual-process models (Chaiken & Trope, 1999).
One of the major contributions that this understanding has given us is how our conscious acts are conditioned or influenced by a huge amount of unconscious processing. For example, when a person makes a specific choice to do
something, that decision occurs after a whole slew of processes have already occurred—the person paying attention in the first place (choosing some parts of reality to focus on and ignoring many others), interpreting information into an overall understanding, evaluating different pieces of information and forming judgments and beliefs. So, who really made this decision then? And how can you say that it was a conscious act, if the vast bulk of the processing was actually unconscious? The critical insight is that because implicit processes happen so quickly and subtly, our presumably conscious and intentional acts are constantly being influenced and guided by our implicit processes, and we are not generally aware of this at all.
Consider the police officers in the Amadou Diallo shooting. As soon as they saw a Black man on the street late at night in the Bronx, a “Black male stereotype”
may have become implicitly activated (Bargh, 1999); this stereotype then would have guided their explicit thinking, resulting in disaster. Indeed, the Black
stereotype may have influenced their very first moment of interpretation, which was that Diallo was “acting suspiciously.” It would have continued to influence the officers’ interpretations of the rest of Amadou’s behaviours, until the critical moment, forming the perception that he was reaching for a gun.
That’s the double-edged sword of implicit processes; they help us process information efficiently, but they do so through creating biases. And when these biases lead to bad judgments or decisions, it is very difficult to recognize this or fix it, because we are not consciously aware of these implicit processes at work.
Person Perception
The effects of implicit processes are dramatically illustrated by research on person perception , the processes by which individuals categorize and form judgments about other people (Kenny, 2004). Person perception begins the instant we encounter another person, guided by our past experiences with people and the interpersonal knowledge we have absorbed from our culture. When we make a first impression of someone, we rely heavily on implicit processes, using whatever schemas we may have available. Schemas are organized clusters of knowledge, beliefs, and expectations about individuals and groups, which influence our attention and perceptual processes in many ways
(see Module 7.3 ). For example, a person’s visible characteristics (e.g., gender, race, age, style of dress) all activate schemas, and these schemas can bring certain traits to mind automatically.
Thin Slices of Behaviour
One amazing aspect of these implicit processes is just how accurate and practically instantaneous they can be. For example, within the first minute of seeing your professor at the front of the room, you have already evaluated her and made some basic judgments; if you were to fill out your course evaluations after, say, one minute of the first class (which would seem highly unfair!), your ratings would likely be very similar to your course evaluations after an entire
semester’s worth of exposure to that person (Ambady & Rosenthal, 1993; Tom et al., 2010). What happens in these situations is that we make very rapid, implicit judgments based on thin slices of behaviour , very small samples of a person’s behaviour. In even a few seconds, our implicit processes, guiding our perceptions holistically and using well-practised heuristics, are able to perceive very small cues and subtle patterns. This gives us instantaneous, intuitive accuracy, at least in part.
Surprisingly, many of our social judgments are made in this way— instantaneously, based on very little information. Whether it’s judging people
based on tiny snippets of conversations we happen to overhear (Holleran et al., 2009; Mehl et al., 2006), or catching a mere glimpse of their face (e.g., we judge trustworthiness, competence, likability, and aggressiveness after seeing a
photograph for less than one second; Willis & Todorov, 2006). Research by Nicholas Rule from the University of Toronto has shown that we can tell surprising things about people given incredibly little information. For example, people can guess a male’s sexual orientation at rates greater than chance after
viewing his photograph for a mere 1/20th of a second (Rule & Ambady, 2008), and Americans can accurately guess whether other people tend to vote
Republican or Democrat merely by looking at a photograph of their face (Rule & Ambady, 2010). Republicans are viewed as having more powerful faces, but Democrats’ are seen as warmer.
Thin-slice research demonstrates just how quickly impressions are formed, and how surprisingly accurate they often can be. Of course, they are not perfectly accurate, and therein lies the problem.
Self-Fulfilling Prophecies and Other
Consequences of First Impressions
First impressions have a big impact on many of our social behaviours. Even very simple cues, such as facial appearance, guide a wide range of behaviours, from how a jury treats a defendant to how people vote. For example, one study asked participants to act as jurors and evaluate evidence against a defendant. If shown
a photograph of a defendant who simply “looked more trustworthy,” participants
were less likely to come to a guilty verdict (Porter et al., 2010). In another study, the outcome of U.S. elections of congressional candidates could be predicted 70% of the time simply using participants’ judgments of how competent the
candidates appeared in photographs (Todorov et al., 2005).
The fact that our implicit judgments can influence our perceptions and behaviours has countless implications for our social lives, particularly in terms of self-fulfilling prophecies , which occur when a first impression (or an expectation) affects one’s behaviour, and then that affects other people’s behaviour, leading one to “confirm” the initial impression or expectation. For example, if you expect someone you meet to be warm and friendly, you will probably be more at ease with them and will treat them in a warm and friendly manner yourself. This friendly behaviour will make them comfortable and will lead them to behave warm and friendly in return, leaving you with the conclusion that they are—surprise!—warm and friendly. You can easily imagine the opposite process, if your initial expectation is that the person will be cold and unfriendly.
Thin slices of behaviour research shows that, in mere seconds, people form impressions that are surprisingly accurate. For example, you could get students to fill out course evaluations in university, evaluating the teaching capability of their professor, in the first minute of the first class, and they would be about the same as ratings taken after an entire semester of being taught by that professor. Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock
Glow Asia RF/Alamy Stock Photo
Self-fulfilling prophecies affect our lives in many different ways. For example, if a person is confident, they are going to behave different than if they assume they are going to fail, nobody is going to like them, and they will continue to be a loser. You already know this; you’ve seen it countless times. It’s the difference between the socially confident person who goes to a party where he doesn’t know anybody and ends up having the best time and talking to all sorts of great people; versus the person who goes to the party and expects that it will be awkward and nobody will like him, so he hangs back, keeps to himself, doesn’t initiate many conversations, and is stiff and uncomfortable, so that he ends up not having a very good time after all. “See, I knew it all along . . . I shouldn’t have gone in the first place. . .” is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
This idea has truly caught fire in North America society because it fits in so well with the “positive thinking” paradigm that so many people believe. And indeed, there is some sense to this. Every coach, athlete, parent, teacher, and anyone who has been a child at some point knows that, in the moment, if a person has no confidence and assumes, “I can’t do it”, then they’re right; they can’t. This is one of the basic lessons of growing up that we all learn at some point; you have to believe in yourself. Because if you don’t, your lack of belief becomes a self- fulfilling prophecy. This is one way that our implicit processes shape our social realities.
Module 13.2a Quiz:
Person Perception
Know . . . 1. are very quick, effortless, and automatic, whereas are
slower, more careful, and effortful.
A. Explicit processes; implicit processes B. Implicit processes; explicit processes C. Internal attributions; external attributions D. External attributions; internal attributions
Understand . . . 2. Which of the following statements about thin slices of behaviour is most
accurate?
A. Thin slices of behaviour lead to inaccurate impressions of others. B. In many instances, lasting and often accurate impressions of
others form in just a few moments.
C. Thin-slice impressions are 100% accurate. D. Thin slices work only when rating the attractiveness of others.
Apply . . . 3. Shania feels sure that her boss doesn’t like her. As a result, every time
her boss is around, Shania acts more restrained and less warm and friendly. This causes her boss to, in fact, find her unfriendly and start to not like her. This is an illustration of
A. a self-fulfilling prophecy. B. thin slices of behaviour. C. implicit processes being stronger than explicit processes. D. explicit processes being stronger than implicit processes.
The Self in the Social World
How do we decide what information to use when we’re trying to understand other people or form impressions of them? What schemas do we activate to guide our judgments? As discussed above, we may use subtle cues in people’s faces or non-verbal behaviours, but what else guides our judgments? Certainly, if the person falls into a group about which there are specific stereotypes, such as categories based on race, class, and gender, then these stereotypes often are
automatically activated and can colour our judgments (Bargh, 1999). But one additional schema that is highly accessible, contains a vast amount of information, and is therefore often used in guiding our social judgments—is ourselves! Much of the time, we look out at the social world through the lens of our own self-concepts.
This has two very important consequences. The first is that we tend to think that
the way we are is the way people should be, and therefore, people who are substantially different from us have something wrong with them. The second is
that we have a strong tendency to split the world into Us and Them, and we are motivated to see Us more positively than how we see Them. Understanding these dynamics gets right to the heart of why there is so much intergroup hostility in the world. It also reveals a tragic irony, which is that in the quest to feel good about ourselves and be happy, we sow the seeds that will grow into distrust, prejudice, and discrimination, thereby causing much suffering and unhappiness. Let’s examine these arguments carefully, because they have major implications for understanding why the world is the way it is.
Projecting the Self Onto Others: False Consensus
and Naive Realism
One way in which our self-concept affects our social perceptions is that we tend
to project our self-concepts onto the social world; this means that the qualities we see in ourselves and the attitudes and opinions that we hold, we tend to assume are similar for society at large. If we are sports fans, we assume that sports is generally important for other people as well. Even qualities we have that we know are not popular are still projected onto society; so, for example, if we are believers in Scientology, we will tend to assume that a larger proportion of the population believes in Scientology than is likely the case, and we will assume there are more Scientology believers out there than a non-believer would
assume. This tendency to project the self-concept onto the social world is known as the false consensus effect (Marks & Miller, 1987). It’s important to understand that this is a pretty sensible way to be, much of the time. After all, if we have to make guesses about people, why not base these guesses on ourselves?
We also generally assume that our perceptions of reality are accurate, that we see things the way they are; this is called naive realism (Ross & Ward, 1996). And it makes sense that we would make this assumption. After all, who wants to assume that they are walking around deluded and wrong all the time?
Imagine being beset by doubts constantly, your life uncertain and stressful because you are never able to trust your own judgments. So instead, we operate under a basic framework of “I make sense,” and then, by extension, “the people that I agree with, who are kind of like me, also make sense.” And then, of course, by one more extension, “the people who I disagree with are deluded, wrong, and quite fundamentally different from me.” You can see the problem here. At the personal level, we just want to feel good about ourselves and function effectively
in the world. But at the group level, we create intergroup biases and an Us vs. Them way of thinking.
Self-Serving Biases and Attributions
This tendency toward naive realism reflects a larger, more general need to want to feel positively about ourselves, to have a positive sense of self-evaluation or
self-esteem (Allport, 1955; Maslow, 1968; Sedikides & Strube, 1995). Undergraduate students clearly enjoy boosts to their self-esteem, reporting preferring to receive such a boost even over eating a favourite food, getting paid,
having sex, or seeing a best friend (Bushman et al., 2011). We strive to maintain our positive self-feelings through a host of self-serving biases , which are biased ways of processing self-relevant information to enhance our positive self-evaluation (Miller & Ross, 1975). For example, we tend to take credit for our successes but blame our failures on other people, circumstances, or bad luck.
One of the sneaky outgrowths of these self-serving biases and motivations is that for many of the qualities and skills that are important to us, we assume that
we are “better” than average. This rather appropriately named better than average effect has been shown in many different domains. We even tend to prefer the letters in our name, especially our initials, over the other letters of the
alphabet (Nuttin, 1985; Pelham et al., 2005); our letters are “better than average.” An extreme example of the better than average effect was shown in one study of almost one million American students; a whopping 85% viewed themselves as “above average” in their ability to get along with other people, and
a full 25% believed they were in the top 1% of this ability (Alicke & Olesya, 2005). If only the laws of math would allow this to be true. . . .
These same self-serving processes also influence the way we explain or interpret people’s behaviour. Much in the same way that first impressions are formed implicitly (which we discussed earlier), our explanations for behaviours tend to start out as automatic and seemingly intuitive. Imagine that you’re driving down the highway and all of a sudden some other driver swerves in front of you, honking; you slam on the brakes and turn the wheel sharply, narrowly avoiding a collision. Quick—what is the first thing that comes to mind about the other driver? Probably, your first thought is not the kindest or gentlest; you assume the other driver is an aggressive jerk, or maybe a bad driver. You yell, “You idiot!” and
shake your fist. This type of explanation is called an internal attribution (also known as a dispositional attribution), whereby the observer (yourself, in the above example) explains the behaviour of the actor (the driver who cut in front of you) in terms of some innate quality of that person (being an aggressive jerk, bad driver, or all-around “idiot”) (see Figure 13.3 ).
Figure 13.3 Internal and External Attributions Internal attributions are based on qualities or actions of the individual, whereas external attributions focus on the context in which the individual is situated.
But of course, there may be other reasons for the driver’s behaviour. Perhaps he is swerving out of the way of a piece of debris on the road, or just blew a tire, or
just received a phone call that his partner is in the hospital and so is distracted, or he’s tired after a long day and didn’t look in his blind spot that one crucial
moment before swerving in front of you. These are external attributions
(also known as situational attributions), whereby the observer explains the actor’s behaviour as the result of the situation (Heider, 1958). Generally, these external attributions are not what first come to mind; rather, we come to them after thinking about it for a bit, and realizing that maybe there were other factors causing the person’s behaviour that we didn’t initially consider.
This tendency to over-emphasize internal (dispositional) attributions and under- emphasize external (situational) factors when explaining other people’s behaviour is known as the fundamental attribution error (FAE) (Ross, 1977). On the other hand, when we explain our own behaviours, we tend to emphasize whichever kind of explanation paints us in the best light. For our negative behaviours, the mistakes we make and embarrassing things we do, our attributions are much more generous. We emphasize the situational factors that cause us to do undesirable things (e.g., we had a headache, we were under a lot of stress, a family member was sick, and so on). This obviously protects us from having to feel incompetent or foolish. However, it also might prevent us from taking responsibility for negative behaviours sometimes.
On the other hand, when our behaviours are desirable, self-serving biases work in the opposite direction; we take as much credit as we can for our successes (e.g., we worked really hard to deserve that promotion, we faced a lot of setbacks but we persevered and didn’t give up).
One rather ironic wrinkle in the story of the FAE is that it doesn’t seem to be quite as “fundamental” as was originally thought. Research on cross-cultural differences has shown that people make the FAE the most in predominantly individualistic cultures such as Canada or the United States, and the least in more collectivistic cultures such as China or Japan. This different approach to explaining others’ behaviour can be seen in how people interpret social events such as news stories. For example, after reading about recent mass murderers in the newspaper, subjects from China are more likely to emphasize situational explanations for the murders (such as recent stressful events in the person’s
life), whereas North American subjects are much more likely to emphasize
dispositional explanations (such as the murderer being an evil person; Morris & Peng, 1994). This greater emphasis on situational factors in collectivistic societies reflects stronger values toward maintaining harmony in interpersonal relationships and fulfilling one’s social roles in the larger community, values
which lead people to be more aware of situational information (Choi et al., 1999; Nisbett, 2003).
Ingroups and Outgroups
Although this desire to feel good about ourselves seems functional and healthy, it often has negative side effects. As we discussed earlier, our self-serving processes also reinforce a tendency to be biased against others. We are motivated to be biased against others because one of the key ways we maintain positive feelings about ourselves is through our identification with larger social
groups (Fein & Spencer, 1997), and we can therefore make ourselves feel good by feeling positively towards these groups. In turn, one way to feel positively about our own group is to focus on how much better we are than other groups
we compare ourselves to. Groups we feel positively toward and identify with are our ingroups , including our family, home team, and co-workers. In contrast, outgroups are those “other” groups that we don’t identify with. In fact, we actively dis-identify with outgroups.
This where our self-serving biases can be so destructive. As positive biases toward the self get extended to include one’s ingroups, people become motivated to see their ingroups as superior to their outgroups—engaging in ingroup bias and potentially, outgroup derogation. All in the service of maintaining our self-esteem, we carve the world into cate gories of Us and Them and then we automatically show a preference for Us.
An extremely clever set of studies that began in the 1970s added a crucial insight to the discussion of how we process information about groups. In real- world social interactions between people, there is already a lot of rele vant group information available simply based on the physical characteristics of the individuals. Rather than creating groups based on established characteristics
such as ethnicity or gender, researchers using the minimal group paradigm divided participants into new groups based on essentially meaningless criteria. In different studies, people were divided into groups based on whether they
preferred one painting over another (Tajfel, 1970; Tajfel et al., 1971), or whether they flipped heads or tails on a coin toss (Locksley et al., 1980). These newly formed groups had no history, no actual affiliation with each other, and no future together after the experiment was over.
Amazingly, even these completely meaningless ways of forming groups are enough to drive prejudice and discrimination; for example, if people are asked to distribute money between the two groups, they consistently give more to their new ingroup members. These results suggest that the process of categorizing
the world into Us and Them is a fundamental and practically unavoidable part of how we process the social world. It also has some sobering implications. If the people in the group who flipped heads in a coin toss prefer their fellow Heads over those nasty Tails, even though they have no history of animosity, no competition over resources, or any other grounds whatsoever on which to base their preferences, imagine how much more powerful people’s biases will be when faced with real-world distinctions and long histories of conflict and violence. Appreciating the deeply biasing influences of making ingroup–outgroup distinctions in the first place adds an important layer to our understanding of these larger conflicts.
In closing this section, we have to reiterate how important it is to understand that, like them or not, we cannot simply dispense with these psychological processes, despite all the trouble they cause us. All of these processes serve important functions for us. Without the false consensus effect and our tendency to project our self-concept onto others, we would be in a great deal of uncertainty about what other people are like; it would be like living on a planet of mysterious and unpredictable aliens. Without naive realism, we would be plagued by doubts and would constantly second-guess our perceptions of the world. Without a positive sense of self-evaluation, it would be easy to feel useless, helpless, and generally miserable. Without the ability to attach ourselves to desired ingroups and distance ourselves from undesired outgroups it would be hard to feel a sense of belonging, which is indispensable to our well-being and healthy identity
(Cacioppo et al., 2003; Myers & Diener, 1995; Tajfel & Turner, 1986). What we need to do then, is to learn to find a balance between our need to feel good about ourselves and our ingroups, and our more enlightened awareness of our fundamental equality with all people.
Module 13.2b Quiz:
The Self in the Social World
Know . . . 1. The tendency to see your ingroup as superior to outgroups is known as
. A. fundamental attribution error B. outgroup bias C. minimal group bias D. ingroup bias
Apply . . . 2. Which of the following would be an example of the fundamental
attribution error?
A. Assuming that your low grade on a math exam is due to how busy you’ve been, whereas another student’s low grade is due to him being a poor student
B. Assuming that you crashed your car because you’re a poor driver, whereas your brother’s car crash was likely because of the icy roads
C. Assuming that your excellent performance in a 10-km run is due to hard work and consistent training, and that the same explanation fits for all of the other fast runners
D. Assuming that genetics can fundamentally explain all human behaviour
3. Jeanette loves reading—she reads at least one book each week despite having a busy work schedule. When she finds out that none of her coworkers enjoy reading novels, she is absolutely shocked, as she
assumed everyone liked to read. Jeanette’s beliefs are an example of
. A. naive realism B. self-serving bias C. the false consensus effect D. thin slices
4. Donald, once poor, inherited $5 million and decided to donate $1000 to a local charity. Donald believes he took this step because he is a kind and
generous man. Donald might be demonstrating . A. the fundamental attribution error B. hindsight bias C. self-serving bias D. concepts of cognitive dissonance
Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Discrimination
Obviously, the roots of prejudice are planted very deeply in our psyches, stemming ultimately from our deep-rooted attachment to our own selves and our automatic social categorization tendencies. Thus, while at the explicit level we may strive to be egalitarian and not discriminate based on dimensions such as race, class, and gender, our normally functioning implicit processes continually
split the world into Us and Them. In fact, using ERP technology to measure brain activation, research has shown that the perceptual system starts to react differently to people based on race and gender within a mere 200 milliseconds
(Ito & Urland, 2003). When we try to change these implicit tendencies, we are battling our vast and speedy implicit system with our weak and ponderously slow explicit system. Much of the time, our explicit, consciously controlled self is going to lose, and we will fall prey to our implicit biases. These implicit biases lay the foundation for stereotyping, prejudice, and intergroup discrimination.
Myths in Mind Are Only Negative Aspects of
Stereotypes Problematic? The first examples that come to mind when stereotyping a group are usually based on negative characteristics. However, it is certainly not the case that all stereotypic associations are negative; men and women are stereotypically associated with different strengths, for example.
What might be counterintuitive to many people is that even the positive aspects of a stereotype carry a kind of hidden danger, leading to a tendency for people to believe it is okay to emphasize the positive aspects of a stereotype in a “benevolent or well-intentioned way.” This has been examined a great deal with regard to sexism. Researchers
have distinguished between hostile sexism, or stereotypes that have negative views of one or both sexes, and benevolent sexism, which includes positive views of one or both sexes (Glick & Fiske, 1996, 2001). For example, consider the somewhat dated saying that women are “the fairer sex.” A person using this phrase may mean it as a compliment, implying that women are virtuous, nurturing, and empathetic.
However, even stereotypes that a person may defend as being “well- intentioned” can place restrictions on an individual’s behaviour. If we consider women to be “virtuous,” they may be held to different sexual standards than men and, as a result, may be judged more harshly when they violate those standards. Similarly, considering women to be nurturing and empathetic reinforces the notion that women are the primary hubs of family life, and therefore less inclined toward career advancement in our competitive world. The belief in women’s nurturance may feed the belief that their career is never the primary one in a two- gender household, and that when it comes time to raise a family, they will step back from their careers while the man will be the primary breadwinner, thus setting discriminatory practices in motion in the workplace and contributing to making women more dependent on men for financial security. Even when women go toe-to-toe with men in the workplace, they may be hindered in careers that call for assertive or aggressive behaviours (such as being successful in the business world) because the “fairer sex” stereotype is pervasive in the organization
(Glick & Fiske, 1996, 2001). Thus, even seemingly positive aspects of a stereotype can result in negative, unforeseen consequences.
From a social-cognitive perspective, a stereotype is a cognitive structure, a set of beliefs about the characteristics that are held by members of a specific social group; these beliefs function as schemas, serving to guide how we process i nformation about our social world. Based on stereotypic beliefs, prejudice is an affective, emotionally laden response to members of outgroups, including holding negative attitudes and making critical judgments of other groups. Stereotyping and prejudice lead to discrimination , behaviour that disfavours or disadvantages members of a certain social group. Taken together, stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination underlie many of the destructive “isms” in society—racism, sexism, and classism, among others. One of the central goals of social-cognitive psychology has been to understand how these processes work.
Prejudice in a Politically Correct World
In recent decades, norms have changed greatly in terms of what is appropriate to say about other people. This increased sensitivity to social diversity and equality, such as society’s greater acceptance of LGBTQ expressions of sexuality, or belief in gender and ethnic equality, is sometimes disparagingly referred to as “political correctness.” The label carries the suggestion that the battles for equality are basically over, and now if people in disadvantaged groups raise concerns about how they are treated in our society, they are just looking for excuses, such as when people say someone is “playing the race card” as though they are using their ethnicity merely as a tool to try to take advantage of society. The truth is quite different. Outgroup stereotypes and prejudices are by no means a thing of the past, and neither are the discriminatory practices that go along with them. Just ask Muslims in the post-9/11 world how stigmatized they feel every time there is a “terrorist” attack somewhere in the world. Or, ask a young Black person whether they feel they are treated exactly the same as Whites by their teachers, or the police, or potential employers. Or, look at the outcry after a young girl in Steubenville, Ohio, was sexually assaulted while unconscious at a party and two prominent high school football players in the
community were found criminally responsible; many people felt that she had ruined their lives, and not the other way around. Or, look at the disturbingly common and unabashed expression of negative views against Canada’s Native people in the wake of the Idle No More protests of recent years. Clearly, the full story of stereotypes and prejudice plays out in the lives of millions of people who are placed into the category of “other” by one group or another.
In the United States, despite the victories of the civil rights movement in shifting the racial attitudes of the general North American population, there is still prejudice toward non-White cultural groups. For example, it still seems as though Black men in particular experience the legal system differently from others. Black men in the U.S. are incarcerated far more often than any other groups, and experience substantially more physical and aggressive treatment from police
(Smith, 2004). Records of police encounters over the past 30 years confirm what many minority groups have long claimed—that the police use more aggressive
techniques on minority suspects than White suspects (Inn, Wheeler, & Sparling, 1977; Smith, 2004; Weitzer & Tuch, 2004). This is not a new phenomenon; historically, Black suspects have also been five times more likely
to die in police confrontations than White suspects (U.S. Department of Justice, 2001).
This prejudice has seeped into the basic social-psychological functioning of many people. For example, even though the general public denounces prejudice and discrimination and holds values of universal equality, studies of implicit processes tell a different story. When people (generally, White people) first are exposed to Black faces, this automatically influences a variety of physiological responses, including the activation of facial muscles, cardiovascular responses,
and brain activity related to fear and negative emotions (Cunningham et al., 2004; Eberhardt, 2005).
In fact, measures of brain activity reveal the battle between implicit and explicit processes. Over very short amounts of time, exposure to White or Black faces activates implicit processes such as those described above, indicating a racially biased pattern of processing. However, over longer periods of time, such as 30 seconds, brain activity shifts, showing heightened activity in the prefrontal cortex.
This area relates to the control of emotions and abstract thinking, consistent with a neurological effort to bring values into one’s mind in order to control emotional reactions. This teaches us a powerful lesson: Even if people abhor prejudice at
the explicit level of their awareness, they may implicitly hold negative stereotypes and experience prejudiced emotional reactions.
Clearly, there can be important discrepancies between stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination at the explicit and implicit levels. This has created huge challenges for researchers attempting to study these processes, because of course simply asking subjects how they feel is only going to reveal their explicit processes, which rarely include overt racism and sexism. This has led to the invention of measurement techniques to try to reveal implicit processes.
Working the Scientific Literacy Model Explicit versus Implicit Measures of Prejudice
If a great deal of modern prejudice has “gone underground” in the sense that people hide it and give politically correct responses at the explicit level, how can researchers accurately measure prejudice in today’s society?
What do we know about measuring prejudice? Psychologists have developed clever ways of measuring the forms of stereotyping and prejudice that are kept silent, either intentionally or because individuals are unaware of their own
prejudices (Greenwald & Banaji, 1995; Nosek, 2007). In order to do so, researchers needed to come up with measurement devices that would reveal people’s implicit processes. This is no easy challenge, because implicit processes can operate so quickly (in less than a second), and so subtly that we are typically not consciously aware of them.
How can science study implicit prejudice?
A major research breakthrough occurred in the 1990s with the
invention of the Implicit Associations Test (IAT ; Greenwald et al., 1998). The IAT measures how fast people can respond to images or words flashed on a computer screen. To complete the test, a person uses two fingers and two computer buttons, and
responds to stimuli, as directed (see Figure 13.4 ). In round 1, subjects are supposed to press one button if they see a White face or a positive word (such as “peace”), and a different button if they see a Black face or a negative word (such as “war”). Thus, in this round, the buttons are associating stereotype-consistent stimuli. With these particular pairings, it takes people around 800 milliseconds (four-fifths of a second) to press the correct button.
Figure 13.4 The IAT Procedure
To complete one condition in the IAT (a), participants must use one button to identify Black faces and negative words and another button to identify White faces and positive words. In the other condition (b), the positive and negative words are switched to be paired with the other race (Black/positive and White/negative). Average response times are faster when Black is paired with negative words and White is paired with positive words (c). Is this a sign of hidden prejudice?
Round 2 rearranges the associations. This time subjects press one button if they see a White face or a negative word, and a different button if they see a Black face or a positive word. Thus, in this round, the buttons are associating the stimuli in stereotype-
inconsistent ways. In this situation, people take an average of 1015 milliseconds to press the correct button, more than one-fifth of a second longer than in round 1. (To control for any possible effects of going first vs. going second, the order in which a person goes through these tasks is usually counterbalanced across subjects, with some going in the order presented here, and others in the reverse order.)
Why does it take longer to respond when there is a Black/positive button than when there is a Black/negative button? The researchers reasoned that racial schemas associate more negativity with Blacks than with Whites. Because schemas guide information processing, they facilitate the processing of information that is schema-consistent; thus, it is easier for a person to make snap judgments to always press one button for either Black or negative stimuli. But schema-inconsistent information is more difficult to process; thus, having two different buttons for Black and for negative means that a person has to override their automatic, implicit association between Black and negative, in order to choose the correct response. The size of the reaction time discrepancy between these two rounds is believed to be a direct measure of the strength of people’s implicitly held negative beliefs or stereotypic associations with Blacks.
The IAT was a major breakthrough, suddenly allowing us to directly measure a person’s implicit biases. Researchers quickly started to develop ways of measuring all sorts of implicit things— implicit attitudes, self-esteem, feelings of connection to nature, and prejudice towards many different groups.
Can we critically evaluate this evidence? Although the data gathered with this instrument show reliable results, some psychologists have questioned the test’s validity: Is the IAT really a measure of prejudice? Or is it possible that the IAT is merely measuring the extent to which people have been
exposed to negative stereotypes, but have not necessarily developed prejudices? After all, simply knowing about a stereotype does not mean an individual believes it, uses it to judge people, or engages in discriminatory behaviour.
Studies by Elizabeth Phelps and her colleagues (2000) suggest that the IAT reflects a person’s emotional reactions to outgroup members. In her studies, White participants were shown pictures of Black and White faces while having their brains scanned using fMRI. The amount of activity detected in the amygdala (a brain area related to fear responses) when looking at Black faces was positively correlated with participants’ IAT
measures of implicit prejudice (see Figure 13.5 ). This suggests that the IAT is measuring something real enough to be reflected in neural activity in areas related to fear and emotional processing.
Figure 13.5 Implicit Associations and the Brain
Researchers displayed photographs of Black and White faces. In White participants, Black faces elicited more activity than White faces in the amygdala, an emotion centre of the brain. This activity was positively correlated with participants’ responses on the IAT. Source: Elizabeth A. Phelps, Kevin J. O’Connor, William A. Cunningham, E. Sumie Funayama, J.
Christopher Gatenby, John C. Gore and Mahzarin R. Banaji, ‘Performance on Indirect Measures of
Race Evaluation Predicts Amygdala Activation’, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 12:5 (September,
2000), pp. 729-738. © 2000 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Why is this relevant? The development of the IAT has fostered a great deal of research and has been applied to at least a dozen forms of stereotyping,
including stereotypes of social classes (Rudman et al., 2002), sexual orientation (Banse et al., 2001), and even fraternity and sorority members (Wells & Corts, 2008). The results of all these tests illustrate that implicit prejudice seems to be more prevalent
than people are willing to express in explicit tests (Nosek et al., 2002). The IAT is also being applied to clinical settings. For example, one research group developed an IAT that measures attitudes about alcohol use. This instrument can successfully predict how much alcohol someone is likely to consume, even
when explicit measures fail to do so (Ostafin et al., 2008). To the extent that this methodology is valid, it is extremely valuable, giving us a window into people’s private minds.
Psych@ The Law Enforcement Academy Imagine that instead of linking positive or negative terms with Black faces in the IAT, you were asked to make a snap decision whether or not to shoot a potential criminal. A number of researchers have used video- game-like tasks to put participants in these situations. In these video simulations, a figure will suddenly appear, either holding a weapon or a non-weapon (e.g., a wallet or a cell phone). It turns out that when making these split-second decisions, people are a little bit slower to decide whether or not to shoot a Black man holding a non-weapon, and they make the wrong decision more often. When a Black man is holding a gun, however, they make the “shoot” decision more quickly than if the
gun is held by a White man (Correll et al., 2007; Correll et al., 2006). The logic is similar to the IAT discussed above. Because Black and “gun” are stereotypically consistent with each other, people have an easier time processing these stimuli together than when Black and “wallet” are paired with each other. Just like the situation in the Amadou Diallo case then, people are more likely to mistakenly shoot a Black man holding a wallet, believing that he might be holding a gun; at least, they’re more likely to do this in a video game.
Certainly a video game pales in comparison to the adrenaline-fuelled confrontation that occurred that fateful night in the Bronx. It is easy to imagine that the stress of a real confrontation, combined with the complexity of a real-world situation, would lead to an even higher chance
of a mistaken shooting occurring (Saus et al., 2006). To combat any implicit influence of race on an officer’s decision to shoot, most law enforcement agencies in North America have developed extensive training programs, part of which focuses on making shoot–don’t-shoot
decisions (Cordner & Shain, 2011). Programs may simulate a variety of firearms combat situations using a combination of walk-through sets with cardboard figures, and realistic mock-combat against other people armed with foam pellet guns. Research suggests that this training is helpful; even student volunteers in the lab can be trained to reduce shooting
errors through such means (Correll et al., 2007; Plant & Peruche, 2005).
The split-second differences in the IAT may be related to officers’ increased use of deadly force with Black suspects, including cases where
the suspect is unarmed. Here, a police officer undergoes virtual reality training designed to reduce shooting errors. ZUMA Press/Newscom
Improving Intergroup Relations
We are left with an immense practical challenge: How can we overcome the implicit processes we have examined in this module and work toward eliminating harmful stereotypes, prejudices, and discrimination from our society? Unfortunately, there are no easy answers. But there are some promising possibilities.
Keri Kawakami at York University has spent more than a decade researching how to overcome implicit stereotyping and prejudice. Research in her lab has shown that people’s implicit networks can be “reprogrammed” through practice. For example, people can be trained to make situational attributions for negative behaviours by stereotyped group members, thereby overcoming the fundamental attribution error; this helps to prevent people from thinking of others in
stereotypic ways (Stewart et al., 2010). In another study, Kawakami and her colleagues used a computer task to teach people to make different associations with a stereotyped group. Subjects were presented with photographs of Blacks and Whites, coupled with either stereotypic or non-stereotypic traits, and were instructed to respond “NO” to stereotypic pairings, and “YES” to non-stereotypic pairings. After extensive training involving many such trials, subjects no longer
activated negative racial stereotypes, even at the implicit level (Kawakami et al., 2000). This suggests that, over time, as our society continues to evolve in an increasingly egalitarian, non-prejudiced direction, it may be possible for people to
unlearn the stereotypes that history has provided us with. However, there is a huge gap between the kind of intensive training that Kawakami’s participants experienced in the lab and the real-world experience of individuals who are bombarded with both stereotypic and non-stereotypic messages on a daily basis. Nevertheless, these results suggest that it is at least possible for people to
“reprogram” themselves.
One of the most well-supported ideas in all of social psychology is the contact hypothesis , which predicts that social contact between members of different groups is extremely important to overcoming prejudice (Allport, 1954; Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006), especially if that contact occurs in settings in which the groups have equal status and power, and ideally, in which group members are
cooperating on tasks or pursuing common goals (Sherif, 1961). Negative stereotypes and the attendant prejudices thrive under conditions of ignorance, whereas allowing people to get to know members of outgroups, to work together to pursue common goals, to come to appreciate their membership in common groups or as part of the same ingroup (e.g., we’re both Blue Jays fans,
Canadians, or members of the human species; Gaertner & Dovidio, 2000), and to develop friendships with members of outgroups (Pettigrew, 1997, 1998) are all different ways in which contact helps to overcome prejudice. In fact, contact between members of different groups not only helps to combat their own prejudices, but that of their friends as well; simply knowing that someone is friends with an outgroup member serves to decrease the prejudice of that
person’s friends (Wright et al., 1997).
Coming to see our fellow human beings as all part of the same human family is an opportunity that recent advances in technology (the Internet, space exploration), economics (globalization), and ironically, global problems (climate change, nuclear proliferation) have made available to all of us. This global perspective shift may, one hopes, help us to overcome our age-old group prejudices. Astronauts who travel into space and look back on this one little planet that we inhabit often report that the experience profoundly affects them.
“The first day or so we all pointed to our countries. The third or fourth day we were
pointing to our continents. By the fifth day, we were aware of only one Earth.” —I
Congress of the Association of Space Explorers Cernay, France October 2-6, 1985.
Quote of Sultan bin Salman Al-Saud, © 1985 Association of Space Explorers. Used by
permission.
Module 13.2c Quiz:
Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Discrimination
Know . . . 1. prejudice refers to situations in which a person stereotypes a
group of people based on hidden, unacknowledged feelings.
A. Explicit B. Discriminative C. Associative D. Implicit
Understand . . . 2. Unconscious forms of prejudice are believed to be measured with the
implicit associations test. This test is based on
A. people creating lists of words that come to mind when they see a person of a specific race.
B. how long it takes people to respond to positive or negative words along with Black or White faces.
C. changes in heart rate that accompany photos of people from different racial backgrounds.
D. increased activity in the emotional centres of the brain that are associated with specific races.
Apply . . . 3. Jacques believed that everyone from Alberta was a racist “redneck.” He
was therefore quite nervous when he found out that he’d have to work with two Albertans who were visiting from his company’s Edmonton office. After spending some time with the two men, however, he realized that his views about Albertans were incorrect. This is an example of
. A. the Notley effect B. conformity C. the contact hypothesis D. pluralistic ignorance
Analyze . . . 4. Which of the following statements about stereotypes and prejudice is
false? A. Stereotypes can be expressed outwardly and very explicitly. B. All stereotypes are of negative characteristics. C. Stereotypes are often experienced implicitly. D. Prejudice has become increasingly unpopular in both Canada
and the United States.
Module 13.2 Summary
contact hypothesis
discrimination
dual-process models
explicit processes
external (situational) attribution
false consensus effect
fundamental attribution error (FAE)
Implicit Associations Test (IAT)
implicit processes
ingroup bias
ingroups
internal (dispositional) attribution
naive realism
outgroups
Know . . . the key terminology associated with social cognition.13.2a
person perception
prejudice
self-fulfilling prophecy
self-serving bias
stereotype
thin slices of behaviour
We quickly form impressions, even when only thin slices of behaviour are available to us. These impressions can be surprisingly accurate, but they can also affect our behaviour in ways that tend to confirm our initial impressions; this is the phenomenon of self-fulfilling prophecies.
The key to overcoming prejudice and discrimination seems to be to help people create different schemas in their mind for members of outgroups. This can be done by retraining people to make different automatic associations with outgroup members, such as training them to consciously reject pairing of the outgroup with negative or stereotyped traits. Different schemas can also be created through realizing a common identity between oneself and the other person, which can occur from extended contact, cooperation on mutual goals, or adopting more inclusive and abstract categories (e.g., human family) for thinking about people.
It is certainly possible for people to commit discriminatory acts without being prejudiced. Regardless of prejudice, stereotypes are absorbed from the larger
Understand . . . how we form first impressions and how these impressions influence us.
13.2b
Apply . . . your understanding of social cognition to the problem of overcoming prejudice and discrimination.
13.2c
Analyze . . . whether people who commit discriminatory acts are necessarily prejudiced.
13.2d
culture, and these can function as interpersonal schemas that can guide how we see things and how we implicitly process information. This can cause us to behave in a discriminatory fashion without us intending to, such as being more likely to assume an ambiguous object is a gun if held by a Black man, compared to when it is held by a White man.
Module 13.3 Attitudes, Behaviour, and Effective Communication
ZUMA Press, Inc./Alamy Stock Photo
Learning Objectives
Know . . . the key terminology in research on attitudes, behaviour, and effective communication. Understand . . . how behaviours influence attitudes in terms of cognitive
13.3a
13.3b
Bill McKibben is a man on a mission. He wants to save the planet. Actually, to be more accurate, he wants to save the kind of planet that humans can live on. But unlike many people with such ambitious dreams, Bill has a few very important factors on his side.
First, he knows what he is talking about when it comes to saving the planet, having published many books and articles on the topic over the past few decades. Second, he has the full weight of the scientific community behind his cause, which agrees that the human species is heading rapidly for catastrophe as we push global warming higher and
higher. And third, he has a global organization, 350.org, spanning almost every country on Earth, with hundreds of thousands of members. He also has some significant victories under his belt, from organizing the most widespread days of political activism in history to raising unprecedented opposition to key government decisions, such as whether or not to pass the Keystone XL pipeline that would take oil from Alberta’s oilsands and transport it across the United States.
For Bill McKibben, and for the human species more generally, to succeed in the fight against climate change, there are some big barriers to overcome. Psychology provides a great deal of insight into how to rise to such a societal challenge. Any social problem is, at some level, a problem of human behaviour, and finding solutions therefore inevitably involves changing human behaviour.
Focus Questions
1. What is the relationship between attitudes and behaviour?
dissonance theory. Apply . . . your understanding of the central route to describe how a message should be designed. Analyze . . . the difficulties communicators face in trying to convince the public to take action on climate change.
13.3c
13.3d
2. How should communications be structured so as to be as persuasive as possible?
According to the American Psychological Association’s official task force on climate change, “Addressing climate change is arguably one of the most
pressing tasks facing this planet and its inhabitants” (American Psychological Association, 2010, p. 6). The task force was comprised of a carefully chosen group of highly regarded senior scientists, including the University of Victoria’s Robert Gifford. Their overall assessment agrees with the perspective of the United Nations, whose Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said in 2009 that climate change was the greatest issue of the 21st century. Using the insights of psychology to find solutions to climate change is increasingly becoming a focus for applied psychologists who specialize in communication and behaviour change. Although this module will use climate change as a running example, the principles being discussed can apply to almost any social issue that affects our society. Hopefully this module will help motivate you to change our world for the better.
Changing People’s Behaviour
Four of the most common approaches taken to attempt to change the public’s behaviour on a large scale are technological, legal, economic, and social. The technological approach focuses on making desired behaviours easier and undesired behaviours more difficult; for example, public transit systems make it easier to get to work without driving; having alternative energy technologies (like solar panels) widely available make it easier for people to reduce their carbon footprint; having a public recycling system with separate bins makes it easier for people to recycle, and so on. The idea is to get the technology right so that people will behave in the desired way. The legal approach focuses on policy change, using laws to encourage positive behaviours and discourage negative behaviours. The economic approach focuses on financial incentives and penalties, generally through taxes and pricing. Generally, if the “right” thing to do
is cheaper, and the “wrong” thing to do is more expensive, people will choose the “right” behaviour. The social approach focuses on using information and communication to raise awareness, educate people, and create positive community organizations to encourage the desired behaviours.
Although each of these approaches obviously can have an impact on public behaviour, each one by itself is insufficient for solving or adapting to major global problems like climate change. The biggest problem with the technological, legal, and economic perspectives (aside from the problem that they can’t, realistically, be applied to every behaviour that is relevant to climate change) is that developing and implementing the technological solutions, or passing the laws and setting the price incentives that would be required to sufficiently change behaviour, can only happen if the public at large will support such changes. Any politician who tries to, for example, increase gas taxes in order to encourage the shift to a sustainable energy economy is going to have to overcome some stiff public resistance. Clearly, finding solutions to our environmental challenges requires that the public supports the solutions.
Inevitably, as you consider how to achieve the technological, legal, or economic changes that might change public behaviour, you often end up at the problem of how to get the support of the general public. This takes us to the fourth approach: social. There are a vast number of social mechanisms for changing human behaviour; however, for the purpose of illustrating the application of social psychology to problems like climate change, we focus on one of the most commonly employed social tactics: raising awareness.
The basic assumption behind the raising awareness approach is that people will generally do the right thing if they have the right information. People’s behaviours reflect their attitudes and beliefs (what they think is important, right vs. wrong, etc.), which in turn, reflect the information that they have available. So to change behaviour, you have to give people information that will help change their beliefs and attitudes. Therein lies the logic behind public service announcements, pamphlets, billboards, education campaigns, and the vast majority of the
behaviour change attempts occurring in society (McKenzie- Mohr, 2000). Learning how to communicate effectively in order to influence attitudes and
behaviour has been a major focus of psychology for most of its history, and we have learned a great deal about how to do so.
Persuasion: Changing Attitudes Through
Communication
Social psychologists have discovered many important principles underlying effective communication, giving us a set of tools for influencing all sorts of behaviours, from wearing condoms to eating chocolate bars. These tools are employed for a wide variety of behaviour change purposes, from standard marketing goals like getting us to buy more stuff, to pro-social causes such as getting us to donate blood or to volunteer for a charitable organization.
If you are preparing a persuasive message, understanding what is likely to connect with and have an impact on your audience is extremely important.
These factors are explored by the elaboration likelihood model (ELM) of persuasive communication. The ELM predicts that when audiences are sufficiently motivated to pay attention to a message (i.e., they care about the issue) and they have the opportunity for careful processing (i.e., they have the cognitive resources available to understand the message), they will be persuaded by the facts of the argument, the substance; when either of these two factors (motivation and opportunity) are missing, people will tend to be persuaded by other factors. According to this model of persuasion, information can appeal to people through two general routes: the central route and the peripheral route (Cacioppo et al., 1986).
The central route to persuasion is all about substance. It occurs when people pay close attention to the content of a message, evaluate the evidence presented, and examine the logic of the arguments. If the message is sufficiently compelling, they will be convinced, internalizing the message as something they
believe in (see Figure 13.6 ). As a result, attitude or belief change that occurs through the central route tends to be strong and long-lasting.
Figure 13.6 Central and Peripheral Routes to Persuasion There are two ways that communications can persuade people. In the central route people are persuaded by the content of a message, while in the peripheral
route they are influenced by the way the content is presented, the style over the substance.
However, much of the time, people are not going to pay sufficient attention to the
content of a message, and instead, persuasion will depend upon other features that are not directly related to the message itself, such as the attractiveness of the person delivering the information, or the number of arguments made
(regardless of the quality of those arguments). When taking the peripheral route to persuasion it’s all about style, not substance. Although persuasion is typically not as powerful through the peripheral route, it is nevertheless often a superior route through which to reach people, in part because it’s so much easier. Even though people may not be paying much attention or may not really care about your issue, they can be persuaded if you can skillfully wield peripheral tools. Peripheral tools are quite dangerous, as a result, because they can make even relatively weak arguments potentially have an impact on people, whereas relatively strong and important arguments, if they are packaged in a more boring, less peripherally appealing way, can be overlooked. Anyone who has spent time on the Internet has encountered some form of propaganda, advertising, or scam
that puts information together in a way that sounds extremely appealing, even if it is based on no actual truth at all. But peripheral tools are powerful enough that even the most unlikely of theories or perspectives can gain traction in society if it’s packaged the right way.
Module 13.3a Quiz:
Changing People’s Behaviour
Understand . . . 1. Which of the following is not a common approach used to change the
public’s behaviour?
A. technological B. social C. economic D. conformity
Apply . . . 2. Which of the following is an example of using the central route to
persuasion?
A. An organization having a visually interesting webpage. B. An organization providing factually correct scientific data. C. An organization using a funny and attractive spokesperson. D. An organization having a cool theme song as part of their
commercials.
3. Ahmed’s grandparents immigrated to Canada from Egypt in the 1970s. He wants to raise awareness about the positive effects immigration can have on a society. To do so, he prints out a list of the benefits of immigration and puts copies in people’s mailboxes. How successful will Ahmed’s attempts at persuasion be—and why?
A. Ahmed will have great success because he used the peripheral route to persuasion successfully.
B. Ahmed will be successful because he is using both the central and peripheral routes to persuasion.
C. Ahmed will not be successful because although he used the central route to persuasion well, he did a poor job using the peripheral route.
D. Ahmed will not be successful because he used both the central and peripheral routes to persuasion poorly.
Using the Central Route Effectively
In order to use the central route effectively, you need to be confident that you have the facts on your side. If you feel your perspective makes logical, rational sense, then it makes sense to appeal to the central route. This means getting your audience to pay close attention to your arguments. In order to do that, you have two key factors to work with: motivation and opportunity. People will be more likely to process information through the central route when they are highly motivated and when they have the knowledge or expertise to understand the information. Thus, the central route is most reliable when people are highly motivated about the topic, when they have sufficient time and freedom from distraction, and when the information is not overwhelmingly complex relative to their knowledge (i.e., if the audience is not very knowledgeable, the information has to be simple, but if the audience has more expertise, then obviously the information can be more nuanced and complex). With these factors in mind, this section of the module will examine some key strategies for maximizing the central route.
Make It Personal
Imagine for a moment that your friend has some juicy, scandalous gossip to tell you. There would be a big difference in your desire to hear it if it were about (1) one of her friends whom you do not know; (2) one of your friends; (3) you! Clearly, your desire to get this information is directly related to how personally relevant it is. Making a message self-relevant is crucially important to motivating people to care and pay attention.
It can be surprisingly easy to make information self-relevant. The simple perspective-shift of going from a third-person to a first-person type of description makes a huge difference in how personally relevant something feels. For a moment, look back to the previous paragraph. In that paragraph, our opening sentence could have been, “Making a message self-relevant is very important, blah blah. . . .” Instead, we said “Imagine for a moment that your friend has some juicy, scandalous gossip. . . .” Even subtle nuances, such as appealing to “you,” the reader, can make a message more personally engaging.
Consider one striking study from the early 1980s (Gregory et al., 1982), a time when cable television (CATV) was still making its way into the North American viewing market. Researchers compared two very similar persuasive appeals, which were presented to two samples of homeowners to try to convince them to subscribe to CATV.
In the information-only condition, homeowners were presented with this appeal: CATV
will provide a broader entertainment and information service to its subscribers. Used
properly, a person can plan in advance to enjoy events offered. Instead of spending
money on the babysitter and gas, and putting up with the hassles of going out, more
time can be spent at home with family, alone, or with friends.
In the imagination condition, homeowners received this appeal: Take a moment and
imagine how CATV will provide you with a broader entertainment and information
service. When you use it properly, you will be able to plan in advance which of the
events offered you wish to enjoy. Take a moment and think of how, instead of spending
money on the babysitter and gas, and then having to put up with the hassles of going
out, you will be able to spend your time at home, with your family, alone, or with your
friends.
As you can see, the two appeals are almost identical, providing the exact same arguments; from a purely logical perspective, they should have exactly the same impact. However, their impact differed dramatically: Only 19.5% of the people who received the information-only appeal signed up for CATV, whereas a whopping 47% subscribed when they were simply told to imagine themselves in the scenario! Imagine the profit difference between selling your product to 1 in 5
people or 1 in 2 people. This is the power of making things personal.
This power has been explained by construal-level theory (Trope & Liberman, 2010), which describes how information affects us differently depending on our psychological distance from the information. Information that is specific, personal, and described in terms of concrete details feels more personal, or closer to us; whereas information that is more general, impersonal, and described in more abstract terms feels less personal, or more distant. Importantly, psychological distance depends not only on geography (people or places that are farther away are less personal), but temporal factors (distant future or past times feel less personal), social factors (people or groups that are further removed from one’s identity are less personal), how abstract the information is (abstractions are less personal than things that are specific), and even the level of certainty one feels about an outcome (outcomes that are less certain are less personal).
Communicators should be able to make their messages feel more personally relevant to the audience by working with these factors, bringing the message close to home in time and space, showing how it affects the audience themselves or their social groups, and making consequences or outcomes as certain as possible.
Climate change communicators, unfortunately, have struggled with this. As a result, their communications have often felt “distant” to many people. If the goal is to create psychological closeness and relevance, climate change communications typically involve exactly the wrong types of information. The term “climate change” itself implies something global and abstract; when people do think of specific others who may suffer due to climate change, they tend to
think of others in the distant future or in distant parts of the world (Leiserowitz et al., 2010; Lorenzoni & Pidgeon, 2006). Also, scientists have been honest about communicating the inherent uncertainty of scientific predictions, leading people to emphasize the uncertainty in the science. And finally, communicating about “the climate” inherently involves abstractions, because the climate is an abstraction, as is “global temperature,” “rates of greenhouse gas emissions,” and much of the important information that climate scientists are trying to
communicate. As a result, people often experience climate change as
psychologically distant, rather than personally relevant (Liberman & Trope, 2008; Milfont, 2010). Bringing the consequences of climate change home for a given audience, bringing them close in time and space, and changing the focus of the discussion to the certainty of what scientists do know rather than the uncertainty of what they don’t, should make the message much more powerful
(Spence et al., 2012).
Working the Scientific Literacy Model The Identifiable Victim Effect
An additional challenge for people worried about climate change
is that it is difficult to show how people will be affected by this issue. Issues seem less real when there is no story to accompany them. Contrast climate change with some other very important social issues facing people in North America. The issue of gun control in the United States is influenced by stories such as the horrendous shooting death of 20 children and six adults in Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012. The crisis facing refugees fleeing war-torn Syria gained international attention when heart- breaking photographs showed the body of three-year-old Alan Kurdi. Racial tensions in the United States, which led to the Black Lives Matter movement, are all-too-often linked with violence, such as the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014. These are all upsetting social issues filled with real human tragedy.
Although it is by no means a competition, approximately 400 000 people die every year due to climate-change–related disasters
(DARA, 2012). And this is just at the very beginning of the climate changes that scientists have been warning us about! Researchers at Stanford University concluded that human civilization itself is headed rapidly toward global collapse due to
an escalating mix of environmental problems such as climate
change and the acidification of the oceans (Ehrlich & Ehrlich, 2013); this collapse will likely occur in the next few generations, possibly affecting your children and grandchildren. Given this terrifying possibility, why have climate scientists (and environmental psychologists) been so unsuccessful in persuading people to change their behaviour? The answer might lie in how they tell their story.
What do we know about communicating about tragedy? Many experiments have shown that information about tragedies has much more impact if it focuses on specific details and concrete events than if it relies upon more abstract, statistical
information. For example, the identifiable victim effect
describes how people are more powerfully moved to action by the story of a single suffering person than by information about a whole group of people.
In one study (Small et al., 2007), researchers gave subjects a chance to donate up to $5 of their earnings from participating in the study to an organization, Save the Children, based on information provided in one of three different conditions. In the
identifiable victim condition, participants read about Rokia, a 7- year-old girl from Mali, Africa, who was desperately poor and
facing severe hunger and possibly starvation. In the statistical victims condition, participants read about food shortages and rainfall deficits affecting more than 20 million people in four
countries in Africa. In the third, combined condition, both types of information were provided; participants read about Rokia and then were also given statistical information about mass suffering in African countries.
The identifiable victim effect was clearly demonstrated; people who read about Rokia gave significantly more ($2.38) than people who read general statistical information ($1.14). Clearly,
Rokia tugs on the heart-strings more than abstract numbers do
(see Figure 13.7 ). It is worth pointing out how strictly illogical this is; if we were rational processors of information, we would respond more strongly to statistics, which is essentially many, many Rokia-like stories combined with each other, than to one single story of Rokia which is, after all, “just an anecdote.”
Figure 13.7 The Identifiable Victim Effect
Participants were willing to donate more money after reading about a specific victim of starvation than they were after reading statistics about widespread starvation. Surprisingly, combining
the story of a specific victim and general statistics led to levels of donations similar to the statistics-only condition. Source: Republished with permission of Elsevier Science, Inc., from Sympathy and callousness: The
impact of deliberative thought on donations to identifiable and statistical victims, Organizational
Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 102, 143–153. Fig 3, p.149. Deborah A. Small, George
Loewenstein and Paul Slovic. March 2007. Permission conveyed through Copyright Clearance
Center, Inc.
One interesting twist in this study was that participants who were given information about Rokia combined with the statistics donated only $1.43, which was statistically no different than what participants gave after being presented with the statistics alone, and was certainly much less than participants gave after only hearing Rokia’s story. This study suggests that trying to
simultaneously appeal to the head and the heart might not always work! This has enormous implications for anyone who wants to communicate to others; you have to very carefully consider the balance of your factual information and technical details with your stories, jokes, images and metaphors. Clearly, it’s not as simple as “have solid facts and tell a good story,” because sometimes, combining the two approaches doesn’t work.
How can science explain the identifiable victim effect? Earlier in the module, we mentioned that abstract information is
experienced as more psychologically distant than concrete, specific information. But this doesn’t go far enough to help us understand the findings in this Rokia study. There are two key results to explain. First, why is Rokia’s individual story more impactful than millions of Rokia stories presented in the form of statistical information? Second, why does combining Rokia’s
story with statistics actually make it less likely for people to act?
To understand these findings, psychologists rely upon dual-
process models (see Module 13.2 ) of information processing (Stanovich & West, 2000). The experiential system
(Epstein, 1994), operates more implicitly, quickly, and intuitively and is predominantly emotional; this system responds strongly to personal experiences, images, stories, and other people’s
emotions. In contrast, the analytic system operates more at the explicit level of consciousness, is slower and more methodical, and uses logic and discursive thinking (i.e., reasoning using language) to try to understand reality. The analytic system specializes in understanding, whereas the experiential system
specializes in intuition and feeling. With these systems in mind, you can begin to see why Rokia’s story would be so powerful; Rokia’s story speaks to the experi ential system, thereby triggering emotional responses, such as empathy, that would motivate people to give to charity. The abstract statistics, however, speak to the analytic system, the head rather than the heart. Less emotional impact leads to less motivational strength
(Barrett & Salovey, 2002; Forgas, 2000). Without emotions, information about the suffering of millions of people becomes
“just a number,” an abstraction that is difficult to feel.
Although one might expect that the most effective approach would simply be to appeal to both systems, it seems that in some situations at least, involving the analytic system at all can backfire. It is as though the analytic system inhibits or shuts down the experiential system, putting people in more of a cold, analytic frame of mind, so that they have little access to their emotional responses. This may be why the condition that included both Rokia and the statistics was no more motivating than the statistics alone. The cold, analytic way of thinking that was activated by the statistics made Rokia’s emotional story have less
impact than it had on its own (Loewenstein et al., 2001; Slovic et al., 2002). Nobel prize–winning biochemist Albert Szent Gyorgi sums this idea up nicely when he talks about the difficulties trying to wrap your head around the consequences of nuclear war. “I am deeply moved if I see one man suffering and would risk my life for him. Then I talk impersonally about the possible pulverization of our big cities, with a hundred million dead. I am unable to multiply one man’s suffering by a hundred million”
(Slovic, 2007).
Can we critically evaluate this evidence? Taken by itself, this single study cannot tell us whether individual stories are more motivating than statistics; it merely tells us that
this particular story is more motivating than these particular
statistics. Specific stories and specific statistics will have different impacts in specific situations with specific people. Obviously, every particular convergence of circumstances is different. Sometimes, a certain story will be particularly powerful; other times a certain statistic will be. Importantly, we don’t know how the impact of statistical information vs. emotional stories changes over the long term or with repeated exposure. You have surely encountered news stories before that have made you feel very strong emotions in the moment, but within even a few days you largely forgot about them, and you never actually made a contribution to the cause or took any sort of action. This happens all the time. Things “go viral” and then, not too long afterwards, everybody gets over it and moves on to something else.
Obviously, we cannot dispense with talking about statistical, abstract information if we are to communicate with each other about what is happening in the world. It therefore becomes extremely important to understand how the experiential and analytic systems can work together, and how to make the best use of them in crafting effective communication strategies.
Why is this relevant? This research is highly relevant to the challenge of motivating people to take action on major societal issues such as climate
change (e.g., Slovic, 2007). The basic principle for communicating in a way that motivates behaviour change is to personally engage the person to reduce the psychological distance of the information. There are many ways to do this, including framing information in a personal way (see the TEDxUofT talk, “Everything You Love”), describing abstract information as personal experiences, focusing on the near future rather than the distant future, emphasizing specific actions that will make a difference, and using social media strategies so that information comes from friends rather than from strangers.
Nevertheless, despite all the tools that we have to communicate and influence behaviour more effectively, countless questions remain concerning how to make the best use of these tools. These questions will have to be answered over and over again, as we seek (and hopefully find!) solutions to the challenges we face, from our personal lives to issues of global scale like climate change. One of the biggest challenges that must be overcome when communicating about any issue is to understand how to
connect the issue to the values of the people receiving the message.
Value Appeals
As any good marketer knows, audiences are much more likely to listen to a message that is framed in such a way that it seems relevant to their values. Interestingly, pro-environmental behaviours have often been framed in ways that
go against people’s self-interest, involving trade-offs between the economy or the environment, jobs or trees, comfort and convenience or personal sacrifice (Schultz & Zelezny, 2003). And as noble as it might be to sit in the dark, shivering through the winter and eating only locally grown root vegetables while having two-minute showers once a week, these are unlikely to be the next hot behaviour trends.
Researchers have uncovered three major value frames that are relevant in
environmental discussions. Biospheric values emphasize the perspectives and value of other species, ecosystems, and nature itself (e.g., save the polar bears,
save the rainforests, save the Earth!). Social-altruistic values emphasize the perspectives and consequences experienced by other people (e.g., climate change will substantially affect the poor, and will take away the rights and
freedoms of future generations; Stern & Dietz, 1994). However, a major problem that environmentally concerned people run into is that biospheric and social-
altruistic value frames are often not compatible with our egoistic values, which
focus on self-enhancement, personal success, material wealth, and
independence (Schultz & Zelezny, 2003; Schwartz, 1994). Unfortunately, because modern capitalism has so deeply wed material success with personal success and “happiness,” people often find that our individualistic strivings for success and happiness are often at odds with our concern for collective issues like the environment.
It’s possible that environmental messages would be more motivating if they were framed in egoistic terms. For example, messages concerning pro-environmental behaviours could emphasize financial savings (e.g., saving energy = saving money), personal empowerment (e.g., feel like you’re making a difference!), the importance of community (e.g. gardening will bring your community together), economic opportunities (e.g., renewable energy is the fastest-growing sector of the energy economy), and even fun and friendship (e.g., attending environmental protests is actually really fun—you meet the coolest people).
From a strategic point of view, appealing to your audience’s values generally enhances the impact of messages; however, as we’ll discuss at the end of this module, appealing to your audience’s existing values may, in some cases, be detrimental to your cause.
Preaching or Flip-Flopping? One-Sided vs. Two-
Sided Messages
One potential downside to taking a straightforward values approach is that you might sound “preachy.” People may feel like you are shoving your values onto them, and therefore reject your arguments. On the other hand, if you don’t make your own position clear and advocate clearly for your values, people may think you are a “flip flopper” who doesn’t stand for anything in particular, or they may just get confused while you describe all aspects of an argument, and stop paying attention.
In short, is it better to give a one-sided message, arguing for a specific position, or a two-sided appeal that acknowledges different perspectives? You might think
that the one-sided message is strongest, because it’s least likely to raise doubts
in the audience’s mind, but research suggests otherwise (O’Keefe, 1999). It is actually more persuasive if you acknowledge opposing arguments than if you just preach from your own soap-box, unless your audience is unlikely to ever hear information that counters your message.
By giving a two-sided message, you make it more likely that your audience will see you as trustworthy and honest. But you gain in another, sneakier way as well. By bringing up, and shooting down, opposing arguments, you help your
audience resist those arguments in the future. This is called attitude inoculation , a strategy for strengthening attitudes and making them more resistant to change by first exposing people to a weak counter-argument and then refuting that argument (Compton & Pfau, 2005; McGuire, 1961). This strategy operates in a similar way to how the flu shot protects you from the flu. When you get injected with a weakened version of the flu virus, your immune system has a chance to respond, building up the antibodies it will need when the real flu comes along. So, by exposing your audience to counter-arguments and then showing why those counter-arguments are not correct, you give your audience the necessary information they will need to resist those counter- arguments when they hear them later.
Emotions in the Central Route
Taking the central route has been the chief strategy of climate change communicators, and unfortunately, they’ve had a pretty tough go of it. The well- funded “climate change denial” movement has been able to spread enough misinformation through the media that many people have been left confused about what to believe. Negative emotions such as confusion are much more damaging than you might expect, influencing people to process information in a different way. Even very subtle manipulations of confusion can have this effect.
For example, research by Norbert Schwarz and his colleagues has shown that even the font or the colour of the text used in a message can change how skeptical people are of the information. If the font is a little bit more difficult to
read (e.g., font like this, compared to font like this), or if the text doesn’t contrast
as starkly from the background and thus is also more difficult to read, people
tend to be more skeptical of the message (Winkielman et al., 2002).
What seems to happen is that the person experiences a subtle amount of negative emotion, which biases their information processing in a negative manner. As a result, they pay more attention to weaknesses in the information and claims that they disagree with, the net result being that they are less easily
persuaded. Schwarz explains that processing fluency , which is the ease with which information is processed, biases the person’s processing of the information; thus, even insignificant aspects of a communication can, through triggering negative affect, influence the communication’s persuasive impact. Political strategists attempt to influence the public’s emotions for similar reasons
through the use of negative political advertising (attack ads; see Module 6.1 ).
Another key factor that can easily derail communication is the message’s complexity. If your arguments are overly technical, complex, or convoluted, or use specialized language, this can also activate negative emotion for people and bias them against your message. Also, people will simply lose interest in a message they don’t understand and stop paying attention. This is a big challenge for communicating about technical topics like climate change. Strangely, experts are often terrible at communicating their knowledge, tending to forget that their audience may not understand the technical language they use and the subtleties
of what they are saying. Chip and Dan Heath (2007) call this the “curse of knowledge.” Anybody who has ever listened to an expert being interviewed on the news has likely experienced this phenomenon. The expert may find the conversation fascinating and rife with meaning, but to the audience it may sound like a monotonous drone.
The curse of knowledge was shown in an innovative experiment (Newton, 1991) in which subjects were assigned to be “tappers” or “listeners.” The tappers were asked to tap the rhythm to a selection of extremely well-known songs, like “Happy Birthday,” while the listeners tried to guess the songs. To the tappers, the songs were totally obvious; when they tapped out “Happy Birthday,” they would hear the words and the tune in their heads and it seemed pretty likely that the listeners would be able to guess the song; in fact, they estimated that listeners
would guess about 50% of the songs. To the listeners, however, the vague “tap- tap-TAP-tap TAP TAP” didn’t amount to much; they guessed the correct songs a mere 2.5% of the time!
This study illustrates how people with knowledge tend to overestimate the amount of knowledge their audience will have. When you are communicating, remember to keep your audience’s perspective in mind and fight the urge to use impressively long words, acronyms, and technical lingo. Saying less, and saying it in less complex ways, is often saying more.
Module 13.3b Quiz:
Using the Central Route Effectively
Know . . . 1. A strategy for strengthening attitudes and making them more resistant to
change by first exposing people to a weak counter-argument and then
refuting that argument is known as . A. attitude inoculation B. social-altruistic processing C. analytic processing D. value framing
Understand . . . 2. One of the challenges that people have when trying to persuade other
people is that
A. social-altruistic values have a much larger effect on behaviour than other value frames.
B. social-altruistic and biospheric value frames are often inconsistent with egoistic value frames.
C. biospheric and egoistic value frames are often in conflict with social-altruistic value frames.
D. value frames have a very small effect on human behaviour.
Apply . . .
3. Which of the following statements about a (fictitious) anti- anxiety medication—Leafobarbital—should be most persuasive?
A. “Many individuals have found that Leafobarbital reduces their anxiety.”
B. “Think of how Leafobarbital could have changed your anxiety- filled high-school years.”
C. “Over 80% of people in a test group in Thailand found Leafobarbital to effectively reduce their anxiety.”
D. “Imagine what your life would be like if you were anxiety free. Leafobarbital will change the way you feel.”
Analyze . . . 4. Which is the best explanation for the identifiable victim effect?
A. Our experiential and analytic systems of processing information work together to produce a logical response.
B. The analytic system inhibits the experiential systems responses, thus providing a greater identification with the victim.
C. The analytic system responds to the logical content of the identifiable victim’s story.
D. The experiential system responds to the emotional content of the identifiable victim’s story.
Using the Peripheral Route Effectively
To be an effective communicator, you can’t ignore the peripheral route. Half a century of social psychology research has identified several powerful factors of influence. There are more than can be represented here, but we will discuss several of the most important ones. You may recognize many of these, because they have undoubtedly been used against you many times, from corporations trying to sell you products to people trying to get you to do them a favour.
Authority
The use of experts and authority figures to deliver a message can often enhance
the impact of the message (Cialdini, 2001). Even people who look like experts but have no real authority on a subject can be used effectively. For example, an extremely successful ad campaign in the 1970s for decaffeinated coffee used a man who had absolutely no expert knowledge of coffee or its health effects; however, as an actor, he played Marcus Welby, M.D., who was a very popular TV doctor at the time. Dressing the part is important as well; a man wearing a suit who jaywalks across a red light will be followed by 3.5 times as many people
as the same man wearing casual clothes (Lefkowitz et al., 1955).
Liking
We believe people we like. Communicators who connect with their audience get
their message across more effectively (Cialdini, 2001). Liking can be influenced by numerous factors, including attractiveness. For example, in a study performed for the American Heart Association, attractive fundraisers generated almost twice as many donations (42% versus 23%) as their less-attractive counterparts
(Reingen & Kernan, 1993). In the 1972 Canadian federal election, candidates who were rated as physically attractive got three times as many votes as
unattractive ones (Efrain & Patterson, 1974); in fact, politically unpopular parties had substantially less attractive candidates, which may have been a big part of their party’s lack of success at the polls! It is interesting to note that voters themselves insisted that their choices were not influenced by something as superficial as appearance. (In an interesting coincidence, the Prime Minister at that time was Pierre Elliott Trudeau—his son, Justin, has also received some attention for his appearance.)
Thus, there are good reasons to be pleasant and appealing, and to look your best, at least from a persuasion perspective. Highlighting any similarities you may share with your audience, loosening up a little and speaking informally, appropriate use of humour, and even complimenting the audience, can all enhance your likability and increase the effectiveness of your communication.
Social Validation
Because humans are such a social species, we use the behaviour of others as a guide to inform us of what we should do (e.g., conformity and social norms; Module 13.2 ). As an influence tactic, social validation can be incredibly powerful. Social validation is at work whenever you hear that a novel is a bestseller, a piece of music has topped the charts, there’s a long line-up outside a night-club, or “polls indicate” that a political candidate is popular.
One such example of social validation used in climate change communication
occurred in the spring of 2013 when Bill McKibben’s organization, 350.org, and several other organizations submitted a petition with one million signatures, urging President Obama to not allow the Keystone XL pipeline to transport oil from Canada’s oilsands to the United States. Afterward, the fact that a million signatures were gathered became a major part of their organization’s marketing messages. You can see how social validation becomes a major tool for communicators; obviously, proponents of the pipeline would want to downplay these facts, whereas opponents of the pipeline would want to highlight them.
Somewhat ironically, social validation is also often misused by communicators. For example, people may try to highlight the urgency of a behaviour change or
the seriousness of an issue by pointing out how few people are currently doing something desirable (such as wearing condoms during casual sex or reducing one’s carbon footprint), or how many people are currently doing something
undesirable (eating a high sugar diet or leaving the lights on all the time). Although the information may be true and the intentions are good, these communications can easily backfire. In one study, a suicide intervention program in New Jersey told people about the high rates of teenage suicides; as a result,
people who went through the program became more likely to think of suicide as a way out of their problems (Cialdini, 2001).
Reciprocity
You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. All cultures have a strong social norm that obligates people to repay to others what they have received. This strong social norm is used by influence specialists all the time, and it can be so sneaky we often don’t realize it. Just think of the “free samples” offered by vendors, the
“free trial workout” offered by health clubs, and even the “free personality assessments” offered by the Church of Scientology. Each makes you feel a debt or obligation. The principle of reciprocity is one reason why corporations donate to politicians’ campaigns, and why pharmaceutical companies spend millions of dollars funding research, organizing conferences, and providing gifts, stationery,
calendars, and even pens to doctors and family health clinics (Cialdini, 2001).
Reciprocity is often used in a two-step manner called the door-in-the-face technique , which involves asking for something relatively big, then following with a request for something relatively small. The logic is that once someone has scaled back their request, you are obligated to meet them part way. Professional negotiators will always start with a proposal they don’t really expect to get; but they know that once they “give up” some of the things they want, the opposing side is obligated to do the same. The door-in-the-face technique can be used to surprising effectiveness.
In one well-known study by Bob Cialdini (Cialdini et al., 1975), people were approached on the street and asked whether they would be willing to volunteer to chaperone inmates from a juvenile detention centre for a day trip to the zoo. When simply asked, 17% said yes. A second set of people were approached and submitted to a door-in-the-face manipulation; they were first asked if they would be willing to volunteer for two hours per week as a counsellor at the juvenile detention centre, and make a commitment for two years. Everybody said no. But when they were subsequently asked whether they would merely agree to volunteer to chaperone inmates from the detention centre on a trip to the zoo for the day, an astonishing 50% said yes. This one-two punch is very effective, both because it makes the person feel obligated to say yes after you have “backed
down,” and because the second request doesn’t seem as onerous when presented after the first, bigger request.
Consistency
One of the most powerful influence techniques, especially for long-term
behaviour change, is an old salesperson’s trick called the foot-in-the-door technique
, which involves making a simple request followed by a more substantial request. To the travelling salesmen of days gone by, literally getting one’s foot in the door meant that a homeowner could not shut you out. In social psychology, the idea is that once you get the person to agree to even a small
request, it’s harder for them to say no to a subsequent request (Burger, 1999; Cialdini, 2000).
The foot-in-the-door technique is also a sneaky strategy, because the initial request can be so small that virtually everyone would say yes to it; nevertheless, it’s powerful, because it makes use of a very strong motivation held by many people—the need for psychological consistency. We’ll describe this in more detail, but just think of how people usually react to being called a hypocrite and you’ll get a sense of the power of the need for consistency. So, the foot-in-the- door technique packs another powerful one-two punch—an initial request that’s hard to refuse locks you in, and then you get cornered into agreeing to a much
larger request (see Figure 13.8 ).
Figure 13.8 Two-Step Persuasion Techniques to Encourage Community Service The foot-in-the-door technique (top) starts with a small request and then moves
on to a larger request. The door-in-the-face technique (bottom) does the reverse. It begins with a highly demanding request and then appears to settle for a much smaller one.
For example, if you are at the beach and you want to go swimming, how can you be sure nobody is going to steal your stuff? Just ask someone to watch your things for you! Simple as that. Although this may seem intuitive, you may be surprised by just how powerful this simple request can be. In one experiment, an experimenter posed as a person sunbathing on the beach, who at one point got up and asked whoever was close them to watch his things; everybody said yes. Then he left, and shortly afterwards, as you might expect, a mock-thief came along and attempted to steal the experimenter’s radio. An astonishing 95% of the people who agreed to watch his things attempted to interfere with the would-be thief, even to the point of chasing the thief down the beach! But in the control condition, when no one was asked, only 20% of people tried to stop the thief
(Cialdini, 2001). Imagine that—an additional 75% of us will become heroic vigilantes just because some stranger casually asks us on a beach to watch his stuff.
Commitments can be extremely subtle, another reason they are sneaky. For example, one restaurant owner was able to reduce the rate of no-shows (people who reserve a table but then don’t show up) from 30% all the way down to 10% by changing two words in the script that his employees used when scheduling reservations over the phone. In the old script, the receptionist would say, “Please call if you have to change your plans.” In the revised script, she said “Would you please call if you have to change your plans?” Then she would wait for a couple
of seconds until the person responded and said yes (Cialdini, 2001). Saying “yes” is an active commitment, and that tiny act was enough to get two-thirds of the no-shows to call first and cancel. Other studies have shown that written commitments (“sign here . . .”) are even more effective than verbal commitments, and commitments that can be made public are the most effective of all.
Module 13.3c Quiz:
Using the Peripheral Route Effectively
Understand . . . 1. Harinder asked Doug to help him carry some boxes from his car into his
backyard. Once that small task was done, Harinder then asked Doug to help him assemble a shed that he had bought. This technique of making a simple request followed by a more substantial request is known as
. A. the door-in-the-face technique B. the foot-in-the-door technique C. social validation D. the nuisance effect
Apply . . . 2. Which attempt at persuasion would be least effective?
A. A bearded man in a leather jacket telling you which type of motorcycle you should buy
B. A well-dressed politician asking you to support her political party C. Someone asking you to be the first person to sign a petition about
an important social issue
D. Someone asking you to sign an online petition that had already been signed by over 100 000 Canadian students
3. Kendra wanted to go to Ottawa for the weekend with her friends, but was afraid that her parents would object. In order to persuade (or manipulate) them, she first asked them if she could travel to Amsterdam with her friends. Her parents said, “No.” The next day she asked if she could at least go to Ottawa. Her parents eventually agreed to this request. This is
an example of . A. the door-in-the-face technique B. the foot-in-the-door technique C. social validation D. the capital effect
The Attitude–Behaviour Feedback Loop
As we mentioned earlier, the reason the foot-in-the-door approach works so well is because people have a general need to be psychologically consistent—for their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviours to match up with each other. Much of the time, we maintain a feeling of consistency by letting our beliefs and attitudes guide our behaviours. We act in the way we think and feel is right. But, the relationship between our actions and beliefs is not always this straightforward.
Cognitive Dissonance
Groundbreaking work by Leon Festinger (1957) showed that we can also maintain a feeling of consistency by simply changing our beliefs to be consistent
with our behaviour. Festinger (1957) proposed cognitive dissonance theory , describing that when we hold inconsistent beliefs, this creates a kind of aversive inner tension, or “dissonance”; we are then motivated to reduce this tension in whatever way we can, often by simply changing the beliefs that created the dissonance in the first place.
This sort of belief change was observed in a dramatic way by Festinger and two of his colleagues when they infiltrated a doomsday cult in the 1950s. December 21, 1954, was the date the world was supposed to end, according to the cult’s leader, Marian Keech (not her real name). Keech told her followers that she was receiving messages from aliens who lived on the planet Clarion. The aliens had warned of an impending flood that would destroy life on Earth, but they promised to come in a spaceship and rescue Keech and her followers before the final cataclysm. If the members kept their faith, the aliens were supposed to contact them at midnight. The cult members were so convinced of impending doom that they gave away their possessions, quit their jobs, and prepared for the end.
Festinger and his colleagues, not being big believers in alien messages about the end of the world, wondered what would happen when the prophecy failed to come true. So, on December 20th, the cult members, including Festinger and his colleagues, gathered together and waited for the spaceship to arrive. Midnight
came . . . and went. A few minutes after midnight the group decided the clocks were fast and any minute now, the aliens would be contacting them. Then an hour passed. And another. The group waited all night, increasingly confused, wondering what was going on.
Finally, at 4:45 a.m., it was apparent the Clarions weren’t coming to whisk them away. Keech had been wrong. The cult members had made fools out of themselves and ruined their lives. You might think that they would slink back to their normal lives, beg for their jobs back, and try to recover from the embarrassment. But no, the opposite happened. Keech suddenly got another message from the Clarions! They told her that because her little group had been so faithful, waiting all night for them to come, God had decided not to destroy the Earth after all. They weren’t fools; they were heroes! Convinced that they had saved the world, Keech and most of her followers (some decided this was ridiculous and ditched them at this point) became even more evangelical, contacting newspapers and media outlets, spreading the good word that the
world had been saved (Festinger et al., 1956).
Festinger and Carlsmith (1959) tested cognitive dissonance theory by having subjects come to their lab and spend an hour engaged in a mind-numbing study that required them to perform menial, repetitive tasks. Afterward, the subjects were told that in a different condition of the study, a research assistant meets subjects beforehand and gives them positive expectations of the study, telling them that it’s a fun and interesting study. Unfortunately, the person called in sick that day, and so the subjects were asked if they would play the part of the research assistant for the next, incoming subject. All they had to do was sit in the waiting room, and when the next subject came in, chat with them and tell them the study was fun and interesting. Little did the unsuspecting partici pants know that this was what the real study was about, getting them to tell a “little white lie” and then seeing how it affected their attitudes.
The subjects were also offered one of two amounts of payment if they agreed to go along with the deception. Some subjects were paid $1, and others were paid $20. After agreeing to play along and deceiving the person in the waiting room, subjects then filled out a few measures of their perceptions of the study. Lo and
behold, after lying about the study, the subjects actually felt more positively toward it! But not all the subjects felt this way, only those who were paid $1. Why might this be?
The subjects who were paid $20 had more than enough justification for telling a little white lie—“I did it for the money.” But getting paid $1 seems hardly worth it; these subjects were left in a state of uncomfortable dissonance, caught between the beliefs “deceiving people is wrong” and “I just lied to somebody for a measly $1.” However, by changing their attitudes—“I didn’t really lie; this study was actually pretty interesting!”—subjects were able to resolve their dissonance and feel good again.
Cognitive dissonance theory can help to explain many puzzling phenomena of everyday life. For example, why would perfectly sane young people crawl through ice water in their underwear while others stood around shouting at them, throwing snowballs, and even spanking them? In the winter of 2013, exactly such an event happened at Ryerson University, when aspiring frosh leaders went through a “hazing ritual.” When it came to light, university administrators and even Ontario’s premier were shocked and appalled, although no official action was taken except to express disapproval.
Students at Dalhousie University, in the same year, were not so lucky; Dalhousie suspended its entire women’s hockey team in January, except for the rookies, who also lost their season as a result of not having a team to play with. The previous September, the team had held a party at which the rookies were subjected to hazing, and when it came to light, the university administration reacted based on a “zero tolerance” policy.
But why does hazing occur? People have traditionally believed that submitting new group members to rituals that are embarrassing, humiliating, even painful and dangerous helps to bond new members to the organization, deepening their commitment and their feelings of belonging. Cognitive dissonance theory suggests they are right. Being humiliated and embarrassed would be generally dissonant with the belief “I am a reasonable, self-respecting person.” But after you have just publicly degraded yourself, it’s not easy to feel that way. One way
to reduce the dissonance (or discomfort) and reconcile your belief about what you just did with your belief that you are a reasonable, self-respecting person is to change one of your beliefs a little bit. For example, if you suffered in order to join a really exclusive, super-cool, awesome group, then this makes sense; of
course you would suffer in order to join that group! And this is exactly what people seem to do; after initiation rituals, they enhance their perceptions that this is a group worth belonging to.
Interestingly, because cognitive dissonance is based on the need for self- consistency, it does not appear to work in quite the same way across cultures. In more collectivistic societies, for example, the need for self-consistency is not as strong, because it is more widely recognized that one’s “self” is more fluid, manifesting differently in different social situations. This is reflected in collectivists experiencing less dissonance after making choices. However, research conducted at the University of Waterloo has shown that people from collectivist cultures do experience dissonance after making difficult choices for
their friends (Hoshino-Browne et al., 2005). It appears that the need for self- consistency still exists; it’s just that the “self” is more interpersonal than personal.
Attitudes and Actions
If attitudes influence behaviours, and behaviours influence attitudes, then you can see that the two are connected to each other in a circular fashion, with each affecting the other in a self-reinforcing cycle. Because each process affects the other, what happens in these causal loops is that initially small changes can grow into very large changes over time. For example, an initially small behaviour change can feed back to strengthen the person’s attitude toward that behaviour, which leads to greater behaviour changes in the future.
Clearly, sometimes this works, as we saw earlier with the cognitive dissonance examples, the power of commitments, and the foot-in-the-door technique. With regard to climate change and the environmental movement, the hope for many decades has been that this foot-in-the-door approach would build increasingly pro-environmental attitudes in the general public in order to move society toward sustainability. By getting the public to adopt relatively easy behaviours, like
recycling or using compact fluorescent light bulbs, the hope has been that this would strengthen pro-environmental attitudes and spill over, or generalize, to other behaviours and greater support for environmental laws and policies. This
spillover effect has been the basic rationale for the general marketing approach to environmental behaviour change: appeal to whatever values people hold (e.g., the money they’ll save), and encourage the adoption of whatever behaviours seem most likely. For example, you may recall a TV commercial of recent years by the David Suzuki Foundation, in which a man was informed of how much beer money he would save if he got rid of his extra fridge in the basement. Unplugging your fridge today, protesting in the streets tomorrow!
Unfortunately for anybody hoping to use the foot-in-the-door technique to change society in major ways, the strategy seems most effective for encouraging the adoption of similar behaviours (e.g., signing a petition for a cause today will make it more likely that you’ll volunteer for that cause in the future), but it does not reliably spill over to a wider range of behaviours. Spillover is even less likely if there are clear, extrinsically motivating reasons for engaging in the behaviour, such as saving beer money. Just like Festinger’s subjects didn’t need to change their attitudes when they were paid $20 for lying, people whose primary reason for conserving energy is to save money are not likely to strengthen their pro- environmental attitudes more generally. After all, they just did it for the money.
Nevertheless, as we have reviewed, psychologists have provided many insights and tools for communicating more effectively to change people’s behaviour. Hopefully some of the readers of this book will use these tools to make the world
a better—and more environmentally sustainable—place. It’s up to you.
Module 13.3d Quiz:
The Attitude–Behaviour Feedback Loop
Understand . . . 1. Some of the participants in Festinger’s classic study of cognitive
dissonance were only paid $1 to lie to another group of participants. Members of this $1 group ended up viewing the boring experiment as
being more important and interesting than another group of participants who were paid $20 to lie. What is the explanation for this group difference?
A. The members of the $20 group were so happy about receiving that much money that they were unable to generate any emotional response about the experiment itself.
B. The people in the $20 group were already a bunch of liars, so they were unaffected by the study.
C. The members of the $20 group felt guilty about accepting so much money; this made them feel less positive toward the experiment than people who only received $1.
D. The members of the $1 group didn’t want to feel like they lied for only $1, so they altered their beliefs about the experiment so that their beliefs matched their actions.
Apply . . . 2. Athletes at many universities in North America undergo humiliating
hazing rituals when they join a team. How are these rituals related to cognitive dissonance?
A. The intense emotions associated with hazing tap into the experiential processing system and increase the athletes’ approval of the team.
B. Athletes who undergo hazing will increase their positive beliefs about the team in order to justify having suffered through the humiliating rituals.
C. Athletes who view the team more positively are more likely to be willing to undergo hazing rituals.
D. There is no relationship between hazing and cognitive dissonance.
Module 13.3 Summary
Know . . . the key terminology in research on attitudes, behaviour, and effective communication.
13.3a
analytic system
attitude inoculation
central route to persuasion
cognitive dissonance theory
construal-level theory
door-in-the-face technique
elaboration likelihood model (ELM)
experiential system
foot-in-the-door technique
identifiable victim effect
peripheral route to persuasion
processing fluency
When people hold cognitions that conflict with each other, such as when they are aware that they have behaved in a way that runs counter to their beliefs or attitudes, they experience an uncomfortable state of arousal known as cognitive dissonance. In order to reduce this dissonance, they need to change one of their conflicting cognitions, which often results in changing their attitudes in order to reflect the behaviour they just performed. In this way, behaviours and attitudes influence each other.
In order to design an effective message using the central route to persuasion, you must start with solid, convincing facts. Then personalize the message,
Understand . . . how behaviours influence attitudes in terms of cognitive dissonance theory.
13.3b
Apply . . . your understanding of the central route to describe how a message should be designed.
13.3c
making it self-relevant for your audience, such as by directly engaging them in a scenario you describe, by describing how the message is relevant to them personally, or by framing the message in terms of values that your audience members hold. Also, keep your message from being unnecessarily complex, so as to maintain the interest of your audience. If your audience is likely to hear opposing viewpoints, be sure to construct a two-sided message that includes those opposing arguments, and then provide solid reasons for why the opposing arguments are not valid. It also makes sense to use peripheral cues to further strengthen your message, such as appealing to authority, mentioning similarities between yourself and the audience, using humour appropriately, and relying predominantly on specific stories rather than on abstract data and statistics.
Climate change communicators face some key challenges. Traditionally, the environmental movement has framed its messages in ways that run counter to predominant North American values, making many people wary of environmental messages or at least likely to see them as not relevant to themselves. Furthermore, climate change is experienced as psychologically distant from the public, with consequences that people feel are generally going to be experienced by people in other parts of the world and by future generations. Climate change information is also highly technical and complex, and is abstract and statistical in nature, given that climate change is a global phenomenon that doesn’t easily boil down to specific stories about specific people. There is also inherent uncertainty in scientific research, which has made it difficult to express climate change information in a way that would seem “certain” to the public.
Analyze . . . the difficulties communicators face in trying to convince the public to take action on climate change.
13.3d
- Cover
- An Introduction to Psychological Science
- An Introduction to Psychological Science
- Business Statistics, Third Canadian Edition, 3/e
- Business Statistics, Third Canadian Edition, 3/e
- Brief Contents
- Contents
- About the Authors
- About the Canadian Authors
- From the Authors
- What’s New in the Second Canadian Edition?
- Content and Features
- For Instructors
- Acknowledgments
- Chapter 1 Introducing Psychological Science
- Module 1.1 The Science of Psychology
- Module 1.2 How Psychology Became a Science
- Chapter 2 Reading and Evaluating Scientific Research
- Module 2.1 Principles of Scientific Research
- Module 2.2 Scientific Research Designs
- Module 2.3 Ethics in Psychological Research
- Module 2.4 A Statistical Primer
- Chapter 3 Biological Psychology
- Module 3.1 Genetic and Evolutionary Perspectives on Behaviour
- Module 3.2 How the Nervous System Works: Cells and Neurotransmitters
- Module 3.3 Structure and Organization of the Nervous System
- Module 3.4 Windows to the Brain: Measuring and Observing Brain Activity
- Chapter 4 Sensation and Perception
- Module 4.1 Sensation and Perception at a Glance
- Module 4.2 The Visual System
- Module 4.3 The Auditory and Vestibular Systems
- Module 4.4 Touch and the Chemical Senses
- Chapter 5 Consciousness
- Module 5.1 Biological Rhythms of Consciousness: Wakefulness and Sleep
- Module 5.2 Altered States of Consciousness: Hypnosis, Mind-Wandering, and Disorders of Consciousness
- Module 5.3 Drugs and Conscious Experience
- Chapter 6 Learning
- Module 6.1 Classical Conditioning: Learning by Association
- Module 6.2 Operant Conditioning: Learning through Consequences
- Module 6.3 Cognitive and Observational Learning
- Chapter 7 Memory
- Module 7.1 Memory Systems
- Module 7.2 Encoding and Retrieving Memories
- Module 7.3 Constructing and Reconstructing Memories
- Chapter 8 Thought and Language
- Module 8.1 The Organization of Knowledge
- Module 8.2 Problem Solving, Judgment, and Decision Making
- Module 8.3 Language and Communication
- Chapter 9 Intelligence Testing
- Module 9.1 Measuring Intelligence
- Module 9.2 Understanding Intelligence
- Module 9.3 Biological, Environmental, and Behavioural Influences on Intelligence
- Chapter 10 Lifespan Development
- Module 10.1 Physical Development from Conception through Infancy
- Module 10.2 Infancy and Childhood: Cognitive and Emotional Development
- Module 10.3 Adolescence
- Module 10.4 Adulthood and Aging
- Chapter 11 Motivation and Emotion
- Module 11.1 Hunger and Eating
- Module 11.2 Sex
- Module 11.3 Social and Achievement Motivation
- Module 11.4 Emotion
- Chapter 12 Personality
- Module 12.1 Contemporary Approaches to Personality
- Module 12.2 Cultural and Biological Approaches to Personality
- Module 12.3 Psychodynamic and Humanistic Approaches to Personality
- Chapter 13 Social Psychology
- Module 13.1 The Power of the Situation: Social Influences on Behaviour
- Module 13.2 Social Cognition
- Module 13.3 Attitudes, Behaviour, and Effective Communication
- Chapter 14 Health, Stress, and Coping
- Module 14.1 Behaviour and Health
- Module 14.2 Stress and Illness
- Module 14.3 Coping and Well-Being
- Chapter 15 Psychological Disorders
- Module 15.1 Defining and Classifying Psychological Disorders
- Module 15.2 Personality and Dissociative Disorders
- Module 15.3 Anxiety, Obsessive–Compulsive, and Depressive Disorders
- Module 15.4 Schizophrenia
- Chapter 16 Therapies
- Module 16.1 Treating Psychological Disorders
- Module 16.2 Psychological Therapies
- Module 16.3 Biomedical Therapies
- Glossary
- References
- Name Index
- Subject Index
