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TRENDS IN PERSONALITY & SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY (LECTURE 2: (Psychological…

- - - - Personality can be usefully described in terms of traits.
      - Trait taxonomies (eg: The Big Five) provide a relatively parsimonious and relatively complete system for describing personality structure
      - Traits can be organised hierarchically.
      - There is more to personality than traits.
  - - - Traits are summary statistics
      - Traits summarize (in terms of what is typical or average), patterns of (or regularities in) affect, behaviour and cognition (i.e., trait expressions, or ABCs).
- - - - A personality trait is something that is relatively stable over time, as opposed to emotions, which fluctuate more often. Personality traits are often conceptualised via the Big Five and the acronym of 'OCEAN' - referring to Openness/Intellect, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism.
        Personality traits can be considered hierarchically under 3 main headings: as dispositional traits, which refer to the stability and are often decontextualized (eg someone being considered 'shy'); or as characteristic adaptations, which refers to motives and goals; or integrative life narratives, which refers to our overall life story we have constructed about who we are as a person.
    - - According to Gosling (2002) our personality is said to influence our environment. This can be seen in various ways, one of which is behavioural residue. Behavioural residue refers to physical traces of behaviour carried out in the environment, such doing your washing and then leaving it sprwaled out on the floor of your bedroom or doing your washing and then folding it neatly on your bed, ready to be put away later. Different behaviours relate to our personality and how we show said personality to other people and the outside world. People are able to pick up on little, or larger, aspects of our personality by our actions, which is what Gosling was referring to with behavioural residue.
- - - - EAST VS WEST PARADOX
        
        prevalence of affective disorders is lower in Asian nations
        
        cultural differences play a role in wellbeing
        
        Cultural differences in how people respond to negative emotion
        
        Cultural differences influence how people think about the world
        
        INDIVIDUALISM
        
        USA, Australia, UK, Canada, NZ, Italy, Denmark
        
        Everyone is supposed to take care of him or herself and his or her immediate family
        - “I” consciousness
        - Personal identity
        
        COLLECTIVISM
        
        Venezuela, Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Pakistan
        
        Born into extended families or clans that protect people in exchange of loyalty
        - “We” consciousness
        - Social identity
        
        Markus & Kitayama (1991)
        
        Independent Self-Construal
        
        Separate from social context
        
        Bounded, unitary, stable structure
        
        Internal, private
        
        -
        
        1 more item...
        
        Culture as a system of thought
        
        East = dialectically view
        
        West = Greek logic, more analytic problem solving
        
        Addressing information and approaching the world around us – have different assumptions built into them
        
        Not just how people define themselves in relation to others, but how people understand the nature of reality, the relationship between things, not just people.
        
        Chinese =
        
        4 more items...
        
        Greek (Western)
        
        1 more item...
        
        Eastern Cultures: Interdependent/holistic/dialectic
        
        1 more item...
        
        Western Cultures: Independent/analytic/essentialist
        
        1 more item...
        
        Naïve Dialecticism – dialectical thinking vs. formal logic
        
        5 more items...
        
        Culture as a system of thought
        
        3 more items...
        
        Westerners respond poorly to negative emotion
        
        Linked to broad cultural dimensions such as individualism/collectivism
  - - - an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience arising from actual or potential tissue damage or described in terms of such damage
      - Donald Price (Science, 2000) - The affective dimension of pain: unpleasantness and emotions associated with future implications, termed secondary affect.
    - - Specificity theory = body has its own separate sensory system for detecting pain, with dedicated nerves, pathways and part of the brain
        Pattern theory = receptors for pain were shared with other senses, such as touch, but only transmitted pain signals when appropriate types of activity reach excessively high levels in the brain as a result of intense stimulation
        Neither theory adequately explained pain as they failed to account for psychological factors
    - - Gate-control theory of pain = Centres around a gating mechanism that is located in the substantia gelatinosa of the dorsal horns, part of the grey matter that runs the length of the spinal cord
        
        3 factors control the opening and closing of the gating mechanism
        
        1. The amount of activity in the pain fibres – the stronger the stimulation, the more active the pain fibres, this tends to open the gate
        
        2. The amount of activity in peripheral fibres – large diameter A-beta fibres that carry information about harmless stimuli or mild irritation; activating these tends to close the gate
        
        3. Messages that descend from the brain – efferent pathways from the brainstem and cortex send signals that may have general or specific effects on opening or closing the gate
        
        Believed that opening and closing of the gate is determined by the interaction of these three factors
        
        Mixed evidence for the gate-control theory of pain, but generally well-supported
    - - Benedetti et al., (PAIN, 2013)
        
        Results indicate that a positive approach to pain reduces pain experience through the co-activation of the opioid and cannabinoid systems.
        
        Telling people pain was good, changed the physiological response to pain in the brain
      - Gray and Wegner (2008)
        Intentional pain hurts more
    - - Salomons, et al., (2004) = control also attenuates neural responses to pain
        
        When we are in control of a painful stimulus = can make the pain feel better because we don’t feel out of control of the situation
        
        Psychological factors are changing at the neural level how people are registering and responding to painful stimuli
      - Changing the value of pain
        
        Pain’s primary function is to warn of present and potential harm, thereby promoting survival (Bateson, 1991)
        
        NEW focus on how pain produces a range consequences that may be considered beneficial.
        
        The role of pain has been largely overlooked in our understanding of well-being and health
        
        Beyond protecting us from harm, pain also may contribute to well- being in critically important ways
        
        Pain reduced by pleasure, and pleasure is reduced by pain
        
        Pain and pleasure in the brain
        
        Pain and pleasure both activate similar brain systems, triggering the release of opioids and dopamine
        
        Opioids reinforce the positive value of the stimulus
        
        Dopamine reinforces the desire to do it again
        
        Cognitive-affective regulation
        
        - Shackman et al., (2011) – pain and cognitive control integrated in the anterior midcingulate cortex (aMCC)
        
        Franklin et al., (2010) found that participants who were exposed to pain (cold-pressor task) showed increased affect regulation compared to a no-pain control group.
  - - - Group Entitativity
        
        Campbell (1958) –
        Entitativity is the property of a group that makes it appear to be a distinct, coherent and bounded entity – its “groupyness”
        
        High entitativity = groups with clear boundaries, internally well-structured, & relatively homogenous
        
        Groups differ in terms of entativity (Hamilton & Sherman, 1996)
        = 4 different types as they decrease in entitativity
        -> Intimacy groups, task groups, social categories, loose associations
      - Group Cohesiveness
        
        How much does a group hang together, feel bonded with one another, have a sense of solidarity
        
        Cohesiveness = extent of trust and cooperation that exists within a group
      - Reciprocity and Transitivity
        
        Reciprocity = if I help you, you help me, if I harm you, you harm me
        - Transitivity = individuals generally share their friends’ opinions of other people. (same friends and same enemies)
        
        Repeated combination of reciprocity and transitivity can transform a population of individuals without identity into stable, cohesive groups that favour the in-group over the out-group.
    - - Rituals show solidarity of the group
        
        Rituals can be used for team building
      - 1. Increase trust and cooperation within groups
        
        collective rituals are associated with effective group functioning, linking ritual to a group’s ability to withstand social collapse
        
        Costly rituals (more effortful or painful) are associated with more increased group cooperation and prosocial behaviours compared to less costly rituals
        
        2. They serve as a costly signal of, and also build commitment within, new members
        
        rituals help large groups survive by overcoming the freerider problem. Ritual’s therefore signal loyalty to the group and as such increase group success.
        
        enduring a costly experience for the sake of a group serves to increase the
        value placed on that group due to dissonance related processes
      - Rituals, pain and group Loyalty
        - Gerard and Mathewson (1966)
        
        Invited college women to listen to a group discussion on sex.
        
        To gain permission to hear the group discussion, the women were told either (a) they had to undergo a mild electric shock or (b) they had to undergo a strong electric shock.
        
        Women who experienced the severe shock rated both the discussion and the discussants more positively.
        
        Provides support for a dissonance explanation regarding the role of pain in increasing the value of group membership, and therefore why painful practices are common in initiation ceremonies.
    - - - Identity fusion = people can feel more connected to people in their group than their own families
        
        National disasters = brings people together
    - - - Tight societies are formal and disciplined, have clearly stated social norms & rebuke individuals who stray from the norm.
        
        Loose societies are informal, have weak or ambiguous norms, and tolerate deviant behavior.
      - Gelfand et al., 2011 = Study across 33 nations:
        
        Negative, difficult shared experiences
        
        The more ecological & historical threats the society had been through, the more ‘tight’ that culture was
        
        Social norms had become tighter and more ‘groupy’ due to these threats
      - Harrington & Gelfand, (2014)
        
        Natural Disasters, Environmental Vulnerabilities:
        
        Tightness is associated with **higher death rates due to heat, lightning, storms and floods, and
        higher tornado risk**
        
        Tightness is also negatively associated with environmental and ecological health
        
        External Threat and State-Level Tightness–Looseness:
        
        Tight nations face more threats from their neighbors
        
        More of a military presence in tight compared with loose states
        
        Natural Resources and State-Level Tightness–Looseness: -Tight states have higher rates of food insecurity, poverty Disease, Health Vulnerabilities, and State-Level Tightness–Looseness: - Tightness is positively related to all indicators of disease prevalence
        
        This work suggests that people may turn to their groups, and seek out the security of their groups (norms) when they are under threat.
        
        This provides a broad cultural and national level analysis of the same phenomena that can occur within small groups
    - - Incorporating principles from social identity theory and self-categorization theory
        
        The self is a context-dependent category and can be defined at different levels of abstraction.
      - To the extent that our sense of self is defined by group membership rather than our individuality = our behaviour is shaped by the perspective and interests of that ingroup.
        
        There is a qualitative difference between behaviour that is based on personal identity (‘I’) and that based on social identity (‘we’).
        
        social identity is salient
        
        our perceptions are aligned with other ingroup
        members,
        
        we influence, and are influenced by, ingroup members.
        
        We emphasise how our group is different from other groups and emphasise similarity within the group
        
        ‘us’ versus ‘them’ dynamics
      - Blue eyed vs brown eyed experiment
      - Self-Categorisation Theory - SCT
        
        What determines when people self-categorize?
        = When there is an interaction between perceiver readiness and fit (normative and comparative fit)
        
        Comparative fit: determined by the meta-contrast principle
        
        as comparative context is extended, people tend to self-categorize at a more inclusive, higher level of abstraction
        
        Normative fit: The extent to which the categorization fits expectations (i.e., stereotypes)
        
        Salience of self-categorization
        
        We develop an understanding of the prototype (what is the right way to behave, expectations) of the category and are willing to conform to normative expectations.
        
        We are willing to accept social influence from others who are perceived as ingroup members
        
        We will resist social influence from outgroup members
      - SIT & SCT
        
        These are both theories of how people understand their identities and how these identities are shaped by group membership
        
        Helps us to understand intergroup dynamics and intergroup conflict
        
        Also helps us to understand how the existence of other groups can shape how we see ourselves and our own groups
      - Fusion Perspective
        
        SIT vs. Fusion
        
        Social identity theory proposes that all interactions with others are located on an interpersonal–intergroup continuum
        
        Group-related behaviour is motivated by a salient social self, & unrelated to a salient personal self, and vice versa
        
        Indicates a hydraulic relationship between the social and personal self
        = “functional antagonism principle.”
        
        - Personal identities: refer to qualities of individuals that make them distinctive
        - Collective identities: align people with social groups
        
        Viewed as somewhat separate, or even “functionally antagonistic”
        
        Pathways to complete overlap
        
        SIT:
        Identification
        -Depersonalization--
        
        Group eclipses person & relationships
        
        Fusion
        
        Personal selves remain agentic and influential, Allowing relational ties between group members, as well as collective ties, to operate
        
        Challenging personal identities Swann et al., 2009
        
        If people’s personal selves are still aegentic when they are fused in the group, then challenging that personal self should lead people to act on behalf of the group
        
        When a person is fused a challenge to their personal identity translates into a willingness to fight and die for their group
        
        This happens no matter whether that challenge comes from the ingroup or the outgroup
        
        A large multinational study revealed a widespread tendency for fused individuals to endorse making extreme sacrifices for their country.
        
        Nevertheless, when asked which of several groups they were most inclined to die for, most participants favored relatively small groups, such as family, over a large and extended group, such as country (Study 1).
        
        To integrate these findings, we proposed that a common mechanism accounts for the willingness of fused people to die for smaller and larger groups.
        
        Specifically, when fused people perceive that group members share core characteristics, they are more likely to project familial ties common in smaller groups onto the extended group, and this enhances willingness to fight and die for the larger group.
        
        Consistent with this, encouraging fused persons to focus on shared core characteristics of members of their country increased their endorsement of making extreme sacrifices for their country.
        
        This pattern emerged whether the core characteristics were biological (Studies 2 and 3) or psychological (Studies 4–6) and whether participants were from China, India, the United States, or Spain.
        
        Further, priming shared core values increased the perception of familial ties among fused group members, which, mediated the influence of fusion on endorsement of extreme sacrifices for the country (Study 5).
        
        Study 6 replicated this moderated mediation effect whether the core characteristics were positive or negative.
        
        - Apparently, for strongly fused persons, recognizing that other group members share core characteristics makes extended groups seem “family like” and worth dying for.
        
        Fusion and moral behavior
        
        Fused people ARE concerned about the group; will translate beliefs into behavior
        
        Summoning-the-death-train paradigm -
        
        90% of participants viewed self-sacrifice as the
        “moral” response, many did not endorse it
        
        The Trolley Dilemma
        
        Why do people make extreme sacrifices for their group?
        
        Feel a visceral sense of oneness (i.e., fusion) with the group that makes genetically related to unrelated persons seem like kin.
        
        When other group members are imperiled, these feelings of psychological kinship make self-sacrifice not only tenable but imperative:
        
        the “right thing to do”, just as most of us would agree that dying for our families is the “right thing to do”.
        
        Forms of Identity Fusion
        
        Local fusion = extent to which people might form actual local ties to people
        
        Extended fusion = feel a sense of fusion with one’s country, due to belief of having those kind of fused relationships
        
        Local fusion (with small groups) is inherently more potent than extended fusion (with large groups)
        
        Nevertheless, strongly fused persons are motivated to sacrifice themselves for large as well as small groups
        
        Fusion vs. SIT
        
        FUSION:
        
        Captures how the personal self and social self can interact to produce pro-group behavior
        
        Draws on notions of kinship and relational ties
        
        Provides insights into self- sacrificial behavior
        
        SIT:
        
        Focuses on how the social self can replace the personal self in directing attitudes and behavior
        
        Draws on notions of collective ties
        
        Provides insights into how people draw esteem from group memberships
- - - - What limits moral sensitivity to non-humans?
        
        APPETITIVE LIMITS TO MORAL SENSITIVITY
        
        - THE MEAT PARADOX =
        
        People don't like animal suffering, but still eat meat
        
        RESOLVING THE MEAT-PARADOX -
        
        To resolve the meat paradox we downplay the mental lives of animals
        
        This makes animals seem less morally relevant & reduces our feelings of concern over their welfare
        
        FACILITATING BEHAVIOUR
        
        Denying food animals minds should facilitate untroubled meat consumption and reduce negative affect
        
        Denying that animals have 'high mental states' reduced negative affect
        
        BEHAVIOUR JUSTIFICATION
        
        Meat-eaters justified their behaviour by denying animals 'moral concern'
        
        ECONOMIC LIMITS TO MORAL SENSITIVITY
        
        MORAL EXPANSIVENESS
        
        Refers to the breadth of entities deemed worthy of moral treatment.
        
        Graded approach to moral inclusion =
        
        Primary moral rights vs. basic moral standing
        
        The Moral Expansiveness Scale (MES)
        
        Multiple boundaries of concern
        
        Intimate moral obligations vs. basic moral rights
        
        Human and non human
        
        Rank 33 items in:
        
        Inner circle
        
        Outer circle
        
        Fringe of Concern
        
        Outside the moral boundary
        
        People rank family& friends highest (inner circle)
        
        Environment and villains lowest (fringes & outer circles)
        
        Unique Predictor of Moral Decision Making
        
        WHAT EXPANDS MORAL SENSITIVITIES TO NON-HUMANS?
        
        BIOPHILIA HYPOTHESIS
        
        Biophilia = tendency of humans to focus on life & lifelike processes
        
        Not a single instinct but learning rules that trigger emotional reactions to animals, which are shaped by culture
        
        human mind = wired to think differently about animals than inanimate objects = part of the brain evolved to specialize in processing information about animals
        
        STUDY = In free-play sessions children aged 1–3 interacted more with live animals than with interesting toys.
        
        ATTACHMENT
        
        Both humans and animals can serve as attachment figures for each other
        
        SOCIAL IDENTIFICATION WITH ANIMALS
        
        Similarity is an important predictor of intergroup relations
        
        Also important for predicting reactions to animal suffering
        
        - STUDY = showed people pictures of animals taken like portraits (humanise them) and photos of animals in the wild
        
        the more people felt a similarity with animals, the more they identified with them
  - - - Belief in some vital power or life force
        
        Common in early scientific thinking about biological processes
        
        Evident within children’s naive theories of biology
        
        Evident in the ontological reasoning of superstitious adults
      - Moral Vitalism Scale =
        
        Replicated finding that analytic thinking is associated with religious disbelief (Gervais & Norenzayan, 2012)
        
        Belief in spirit possession
        
        Contagion concerns
      - MV is associated with a perception that:
        
        People can be possessed by evil
        
        Evil can cause thoughts and behavior
        
        Concerns that evil may be transferred through indirect contact
        
        MENTAL PURITY
        
        MENTAL PURITY
        
        STUDY =
        
        asked people to reveal something 'sinful'
        
        then asked if 'the forces of evil' were influencing your thoughts
        
        then asked if they would like to read an article on controlling thoughts or having a free mind
        
        Results =
        -MV's believed evil had influenced their thoughts
        
        MV's opted for article on how to control impure thoughts
      - WHAT PREDICTS MORAL VITALISM?
        
        Correlation between historical pathogen prevalence and moral vitalism beliefs is very high
        
        HPP Explains almost 50% of the variance in MV across countries after controlling for, age, gender, religious, political orientation, moral foundations , GDP per capita.
- - - - No general consensus on 'emotion' defintion
      - Responses to events/situations that are relevant to current goals
      - Involves changes across multiple domains:
      - • Subjective experience (feelings)
      - • Cognition
      - • Behaviour
      - • Physiology
    - - KAPLAN STUDY ON EMOTIONS VS MOOD =
        
        EMOTION (feelings about at a specific event)
        
        • Primarily influenced by the subjective importance of an event (more important events produce stronger emotions)
        
        • When recalling emotions in response to past events, the current importance of events will bias recall
        
        • Although importance of salient emotional events is relatively stable, it may decrease over time
        
        • past achievements seem less important because people develop new aspirations
        
        • past failures seem less important because people cope with them by reframing them as less significant
        
        • Thus, people will under-estimate past positive and negative emotions
        
        MOODS (general feelings, not directed at a specific event)
        
        • Mood is influenced by many mundane, incidental factors (weather, sleep, ambient noise, physiological states, etc.)
        
        • When recalling their mood surrounding a salient event, people may rely on their (recalled) emotional response to the event, which tends to be quite intense, and may ignore more mundane (mitigating) influences on mood.
        
        • Thus, people will over-estimate intensity of past positive and negative mood
      - Accompanied by physiological changes (e.g., increased HR, BP)
      - Relatively brief
      - Directed towards a specific object (intentional state)
    - - Not directed towards a specific object
      - Not necessarily involving physiological changes
      - Relatively long-lasting
  - - - Matsumoto & Willingham (2009)
        Study with blind athletes and non-blind athletes = showed similar facial expressions suggesting they are innate
  - - - People (un)consciously evaluate events in relation to their current goals, on several dimensions
      - Appraisals cause emotions (or are necessary components of emotions)
      - Appraisal accounts for breathtaking variability in emotions
      - GOAL RELEVANCE
        How important is this situation?
        Is it relevant to my goals?
        GOAL CONGRUENCE
        Does this situation facilitate or block my goals?
        Is it advantageous or disadvantageous?
        SELF- VS. OTHER-RESPONSIBILITY
        Who is responsible for this situation?
        Did I cause this event or was it caused by someone else?
        CONTROL/POWER
        Is it possible to change/modify the situation?
        Are you able to control or influence the outcome of the situation?
        (EMOTION-/PROBLEM-FOCUSED) COPING POTENTIAL
        Am I able to cope with this situation?
        Can I live with, and adjust to, the consequences of this event?
        FUTURE EXPECTANCY
        Will this even turn out the way I want?
        Does the situation look like it will be advantageous for me in the future?
      - - Scherer’s Component Process Model (CPM) proposes that appraisals follow a sequence, with information from previous appraisals influencing subsequent appraisals
- - - - Regarding emotion, motivation and personality
    - - Behavioural Activation/Approach System (BAS)
      - Response to signals of reward
      - Underlies activated PA (positive affect)
      - Function: Reduce the distance between self and reward stimulus
    - - Behavioural Inhibition System (BIS) and Fight/Flight/Freeze system (FFFS)
      - FFFS response to signals of punishment/threat
      - BIS responds to goal conflict (i.e., joint BAS-FFFS activation)
      - Underlies activated NA (negative affect)
      - Function: Increase distance between self and threat stimulus
  - - - Feeling positive & negative valence simultaneously
    - - The general pleasant (positive) or unpleasant (negative) quality of a feeling
    - - Circumplex = Arousal and Valence dimensions emphasised
      - PA/NA model = PA & NA dimensions emphasised
      - These two models suggest you cannot feel mixed emotions (as they occur on single/opposite valence or arousal states)
  - - - Mood induction via ‘guided imagery’ method:
      - Negative vignettes produced greater negative affect (NA)
        Positive vignettes produced greater positive affect (PA)
        Extraversion predicted greater PA following positive vignettes,
        Neuroticism predicted greater NA following negative vignettes:
    - - Extraversion should only predict activated positive affect in response to reward
      - Mood induction should clearly involve rewards, not merely ‘pleasant’ scenarios…
      - Extraversion did not predict increases in low activation PA in either study
        Extraversion did predict increased activated PA in response to reward vs pleasant stimuli
  - - - The dopamine system
      - Includes regions of the midbrain (e.g., ventral tegmental area), basal ganglia (e.g., the nucelus accumbens, and frontal areas (e.g., orbitofrontal cortex)
      - Several links with Extroversion
    - - More complicated
        
        Serotonin and noradrenaline
        
        Limbic system structures = e.g., the amygdala
        
        Key role in emotion processing
        
        Linked with Neuroticism
        
        Mental Health implications
        
        Neuroticism now known to be a robust risk factor for PTSD via longitudinal studies (Ogle et al., 2016)
- - - - very brief responses, which turn “on” and then rapidly turn “off”
        
        brief, flash-like responses with a steep onset and fast recovery
    - - Frijda’s 1988 article =
        
        Describe the lawful properties of emotions = how they fluctuate over time
        
        “emotions emerge, wax, and wane according to rules in strictly determined fashion”
    - - Situational Meaning = Emotions arise in response to patterns of appraised situational meaning
      - Concern = Emotions arise in response to events that are relevant to an individual’s concerns (i.e., important)
      - Apparent Reality = Emotions are elicited in response to events that seem/feel real in the present moment (e.g., future rewards or punishments are discounted relative to immediate ones).
      - Closure = Emotions are relatively closed to goals other than their own. Emotions display “control precedence” over other psychological and physiological processes.
      - Lightest Load and Greatest Gain = Whenever possible, situations will be viewed in such a way to minimize emotional load, and/or maximise emotional gain
    - - The Law of Hedonic Asymmetry = follow up of law of habituation = habituation seems to be greater for positive than negative – negative linger, positive emotions more rapidly return to baseline than negative
      - Change, Habituation & Comparative Feeling = emotions need to fluctuate from one moment to the next, in order to tell the person that something is changing and going on in the environment, related to their wellbeing.
        Emotions start off strong, and gradually wear off
      - Conservation of Emotional Momentum = most important says Peter. In contradiction to habituation law = emotions persist over time, unless some force acts upon them. Like ‘emotional inertia’
    - - Functional analysis identified three key features, which accounted for 84% of variability in emotion intensity profiles:
      - Explosiveness: steepness of emotional onset, reflecting initial reactivity to the emotional event
      - Accumulation: steepness of emotional onset, reflecting recovery from the emotional event, or how quickly emotional intensity returns to baseline (or rather continues to accumulate)
      - Emotion duration
        
        Defining the start of emotions is straightforward (unlike moods) because they have clear eliciting events
        Defining when an emotion ends is more problematic;
        
        - First returns to baseline = as soon as there is no longer any indication of an emotion
        - Full recovery = after emotion returns to baseline, it could be reactivated
        
        These two different definitions give you different estimates as to how long emotions last
        
        Verduyn & Lavrijsen (2015)
        
        Importance (of event) and Rumination (in response to emotion/event) accounted for 43% of the differences in duration between emotions!
        
        Predictors of emotion duration
        
        More important events predict more intense and longer emotions
        
        Persistence or reappearance of emotion-eliciting events increase emotion duration
        
        Continuing to think about the event after it is over (rumination) predicts longer emotions
        
        Certain emotions (sadness) may be particularly prone to last long.
        
        Duration of other emotion components
        
        Arguably, other emotion components are much shorter lasting than the subjective experience (feelings)
        
        Behavioural component (e.g., facial expressions) are often considered to last only a few seconds
        
        Autonomic responses (e.g., HR, blood pressure, pupil dilation) are fast acting (fight-or-flight) and thought to be very brief
- - - - Indirect effects of personality
      - Trait --> other factor --> wellbeing
      - The Dynamic Equilibrium model
        (aka ‘set-point theory’)
        Headey & Wearing, 1992
        
        Key tenets:
        
        Personality traits lead to relatively stable experiences of events, experiences, and environments
        
        Determines one’s baseline level of wellbeing (or ‘set-point’)
        
        Transient events cause temporary fluctuations around one’s set-point
        
        Criticism:
        
        More observation/description than explanation
      - Cognitive processing of affective information…Robinson et al., 2007
        
        Chronic accessibility
        
        Affective priming
        
        Affective control
        
        Emotion control
        
        Cognitive control
      - Social Activity Hypothesis =
        Extraverts are happier because they engage in higher levels of social activity (Eysenck & Eysenck, 1985)
        This hypothesis is generally not supported as fully explaining the link between Extraversion and wellbeing
        
        Lucas et al., 2008 used ESM to study mediating effects
        - Extraversion predicts all social activities
        
        Only 1 direct effect of social activity (via ‘helping behaviour’)
        
        Strong direct effect of extraversion on PA means that social activity does not fully explain the E->PA association
        
        Lönnqvista & Itkonen, 2014:
        
        extraversion explains the link between social activity and wellbeing?
        
        = maybe the only reason social activity is related to wellbeing in the first place, is because it is a proxy for extraversion
        
        Social Activity – quantity vs. quality
        
        Lee et al. 2008:
        
        “Social connectedness”: sense of being close to others and involved in social affairs, etc.
        
        Mediated the relation between E and wellbeing
        
        Smillie et al., 2015; Sun et al., 2017:
        
        "Social contribution”: sense of playing an active role in society, making a difference to others, etc.
        
        Mediated the relation between E and wellbeing
        
        = Therefore we can’t rule out a role for social processes
    - - Other factor ----- trait -------wellbeing
      - Conditional effects of personality
      - “Affective Reactivity Hypothesis” (week 3)
      - Differential sensitivity to reward (E) and punishment (N) (Gray, 1987)…
        
        Prediction: extraverts enjoy larger boosts in positive affect, neurotics suffer larger boosts in negative affect
  - - - Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS) = respond to 5 items
      - Psychological Wellbeing Scales (PWB): Eudaimonic =
        Autonomy, Environmental Mastery, Personal Growth, Personal Relations, Self Acceptance, Purpose in Life
      - PERMA: 5 pillars of well-being = Positive Emotions, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, Accomplishment
  - - - CLASSIC STUDY - Weather & Well-being =
        
        Showed that really trivial, positive things (i.e. the weather or finding money) can impact on global retrospective assessments of how people’s lives are going
        
        Suggests happiness ratings are really impacted on by external events
    - - “hedonic treadmill”
        Effects of life effects on wellbeing appear to be temporary
      - Money = studies show money does make you happy (modest correlations though)
    - - Clues that one’s wellbeing may be shaped more by the person than their circumstances:
        
        Satisfaction ratings across different contexts (e.g., work vs. leisure) are highly correlated
        
        WB shows high stability over long time periods
        
        Up to 80% of the variance in SWB is heritable
        
        PERSONALITY TRAITS
        
        Together, the Big Five explain 24 to 43% of the variance in WB
        
        Extraversion and neuroticism are the strongest known predictors of wellbeing
        
        Steel et al. (2008):
        
        meta-analysis of 249 studies on personality and wellbeing:
        “personality traits play a much greater role in determining an individual’s general level of SWB than previously thought.”
        
        Trait ‘aspects’ and wellbeing
        Sun, Kaufman & Smillie, 2018
        Conclusions:
        
        Personality-wellbeing associations skewed toward one aspect of each big five domain:
        Enthusiasm, (low) withdrawal, industriousness, compassion, and intellect
        
        Extraversion, neuroticism, and their aspects dominated wellbeing associations… BUT
        …for less hedonic conceptions of wellbeing (e.g., PWB), conscientiousness, agreeableness, and openness/intellect emerged as important traits
- - - - Voluntary behaviour(s) intended to help or benefit other(s)
        
        ‘Other-regarding’ tendencies and behaviours…
      - Altruism: Prosocial actions in the absence of any expectation of rewards,
    - - Principles, or codes of conduct, that mark behaviours as right or wrong
      - 5 “Moral Foundations”
        1. Care vs. harm – concern for others’ wellbeing / suffering
        2. Fairness vs. cheating – justice, reciprocity, equality, and proportionality
        3. Ingroup/Loyalty vs. betrayal– favouring and protecting one’s ingroup
        4. Authority vs. subversion – obedience, respect, obligations to superiors and subordinates
        5. Purity vs. degradation – pursuing elevated noble ways and abhorring things that are disgusting or profane
    - - The Interpersonal Circumplex (IPC)
        
        Interpersonal behaviours usually involve either:
        
        Love/communion – “getting along”
        
        Status/agency – “getting ahead”
        
        Two personality dimensions:
        
        WARMTH (agreeableness)
        
        DOMINANCE (extraversion)
      - Empathic Concern
        
        “tendency to experience feelings of sympathy and compassion for others in need”
        
        Often manipulated as a state :
        
        Conceptualised as an emotion that directly drives prosocial behaviour
        
        Thus also examined as a mediator
      - Predicting prosocial behaviour
        
        Charitable giving…
        
        Empathic concern was a significant predictor of reported charitable giving
        
        Agreeableness predicted donations (from a small endowment provided by the experimenters) toward targets rated as more deserving
        
        - Empathic concern explain the ‘gender gap’ in charitable giving (Men generally give less than women)
        - Empathic concern also a suggested explanation for greater generosity of low SES individuals
        
        TISSUE/ORGAN DONATION:
        
        Big 5 agreeableness is a consistent predictor of…
        -Donating blood, kidney donation, dead family's organs
        
        Volunteering
        
        Childhood Personality predicted volunteering during adolescence
        
        Strongest predictors were those related to Agreeableness and Extraversion
        
        Empathic vignettes:
        Agreeableness predicted all prosocial responses (empathy, willing to donate money or time)
        
        Economic Games
        
        Simple tasks that model social interactions in terms of ‘preferences’
        
        Key features:
        
        2+ people
        
        Goals/Rewards
        
        Rules
        
        Limited information
        
        Interdependent payoff matrix
        
        Fairness = Dictator game
        
        Punishment (self as victim) = Ultimatum game
        
        Punishment and helping (when another is victim) = Third party games
        
        Cooperation = Social dilemmas
        
        The Dictator Game
        
        Models one’s preference for equality
        
        Individual differences
        
        Agreeableness positively predicts (higher) dictator allocations
        
        Often described in terms of “altruism” or “empathy”
        
        But economists argue that dictator allocations reflect etiquette/manners
        
        The two ‘aspects’ of agreeableness can help clarify processes in the dictator game =
        Compassion
        -Emotional concern for others
        -Caring about others’ wellbeing
        Politeness
        -Respect for others’ needs and rights
        -Adherence to social norms surrounding good behaviour
        
        = Politeness, not compassion, predicts fair offers
        Thus: Etiquette, not empathy, drives fairness preferences
        
        The Ultimatum Game
        
        Rejections model punishment of unfairness
        
        Predicted by HEXACO agreeableness vs. aggression
        
        Dictator Games + Context
        
        Standard Dictator Game after exposure to four contextual frames:
        
        Manipulation of equity: “You/your partner worked substantially longer to produce the $10 stake”
        
        Manipulation of need: “You/your partner needs the money substantially more”
        
        Results =
        Now, politeness and compassion predict fairer offers
        
        Third party punishment/compensation Game
        
        You witness something unfair, and having the ability to do something about it (giving your points, taking away unfair person’s points)
        
        2 more items...
        
        Politeness vs. compassion… (RE: Morality)
        Moral foundations:
        
        Compassion predicts endorsement of ‘egalitarian’ moral values’ (i.e., care vs. harm and fairness vs. cheating)
        
        Politeness predicts endorsement of moral values based on ‘order/traditionalism’ (esp. authority vs. subversion)
        Moral Judgement:
        
        Politeness and deontological moral judgements (based on objective rules, the inherent rightness/wrongness of actions)
        Concern for animals:
        
        Compassion (but not politeness) and vegetarian/vegan diets
      - HEXACO PERSONALITY INVENTORY
        
        Some argue that six dimensions are needed to provide a comprehensive framework for personality traits
        
        Personality descriptors included within research leading to the big five may have under-represented moral and prosocial aspects of personality (e.g: greed, honesty, forgiveness)
        
        HONESTY-HUMILITY
        EMOTIONALITY
        eXTRAVERSION
        AGREEABLENESS vs AGRESSION
        CONSCIENTIOUSNESS
        OPENNESS TO EXPERIENCE
        
        Active vs. Reactive Prosociality
        
        Active Prosociality: fairness and cooperation despite opportunities for exploitation
        e.g., “I would never accept a bribe, even if it were very large”
        = - Honesty-Humility = Sincerity, fairness, and modesty (vs. greed, deceitfulness)
        
        Reactive prosociality: forgiveness and tolerance of others’ transgresions
        e.g., “I generally accept people’s faults without complaining about them.”
        = Agreeableness (vs. aggression)
        Peaceable, gentle, and patient (vs. quick-tempered, quarrelsome)
        
        MORALITY & HEXACO
        
        Sex, power, and money
        (low) Honesty-Humility predicts self reports of:
        
        Engagement in short term mating strategies; sexual ‘quid pro quos’
        
        Desire for power; Social Dominance Orientation
        
        Materialism; conspicuous spending
        
        Religiosity
        (High) Honesty-Humility predicts greater religiosity and acceptance of religion
  - - - Personality often described as antithetical to cognition
        BUT...
        
        Openness/Intellect
        
        Formulate ideas quickly
        
        Enjoy thinking about things
        
        Can handle much information
        
        Love to read challenging material
      - The Controversial Fifth Dimension…
        
        Openness/Intellect has been the most controversial of the big five:
        1: Not anticipated by theory
        2: Disagreement about how to conceptualise…
        3: Openness/Intellect is the only big five domain that is correlated with cognitive performance…
        
        O/I is the most heterogeneous of all of the Big Five domains…
        
        very broad spectrum of loosely connected traits…
        
        A paradoxical simplex…
        ~ The O/I domain seems paradoxical because it links together dimensions that appear unrelated or even negatively related:
        ~ Notably: cognitive organization vs. disorganization:
        
        Need for cognition, cognitive reflection, cognitive ability
        
        Unusual thinking, fantasy proneness, apophenia
        
        Apophenia: the perception of patterns or connections where none exist =
        
        Hallucinations: erroneous experiences (imaginary voices, images)
        
        Delusions: erroneous beliefs
        
        A Simplex Model =
        
        Concepts relate to each other sequentially – top to bottom
        
        Start with similar concepts, then end with complete opposites to the start
        
        Two correlated ‘aspects’ of a broader trait domain:
        
        Openness…
        See beauty in things that others might notice…
        
        Intellect…
        Am quick to understand things…
        
        Personality believed to describe typical performance (what we tend to do), not maximal performance (what we can do)
      - O/I and cognitive performance
        
        All O/I scales correlated with cognitive ability
        
        Implicit learning…
        
        Serial reaction time (SRT) implicit learning task:
        
        After many trials people start to ‘predict’ the sequence
        
        Evidence for a ‘double dissociation’..
        
        Convergent thinking = Identifying the correct solution according to facts and/or logic.
        Divergent thinking: = Generating multiple solutions through insight and creativity
        
        Used to assess creativity / creative performance
        
        Divergent thinking tests…
        
        e.g., the alternate uses task (Guilford, 1967):
        
        Different uses for: e.g.: a brick, a pencil, a box
        
        Related to openness/intellect but not other big five domains
        
        Creative Achievement
        
        Openness/intellect assessed in relation to…
        
        Intelligence / cognitive ability
        
        Divergent thinking (e.g., alternate uses task)
        
        Creative Achievement Questionnaire
        
        O/I predicts higher cognitive ability
        
        O/I predicts higher lab assessed creativity
        
        Intellect predicted creative achievement in the sciences
        = inventions, scientific discovery
        
        Openness predicted creative achievement in the arts
        = visual arts, music, dance, etc
        
        Cognitive Exploration/Engagement
        
        -1. Behavioural correlates…
        
        Educational attainment / engagement
        
        Quantity and variety of books and music
        
        Travel
        
        Recreational drug use
        
        Latent Inhibition (AKA ‘learned irrelevance’):
        
        A ‘gating’ mechanism that helps us habituate to stimuli that are not important.
        O/I predicts decreased LI
        
        Faster to utilize the previously ‘irrelevant’ information
        Interpretation:
        
        Persons high on openness/intellect engage more with “complex possibilities laying dormant in so-called ‘familiar’ environments”
        
        They risk “drowning in possibility”
        
        Binocular Rivalry:
        
        Another gating mechanism…
        
        When incompatible stimuli are presented to each eye, each percept “rivals” the other for dominance
        = We ‘see’ through only one eye at a time
        
        But sometimes both stimuli break through into consciousness – Mixed Percept
        
        Results = Across 3 studies, people high on Openness/Intellect experienced mixed percept more frequently
        
        4. Inattentional blindness
        
        People high on openness/intellect are more likely to see the gorilla
        
        5. ‘Anchoring’:
        
        The influence on a judgement or assessment exerted by a previously presented piece of information (the ‘anchor’)
        
        Results = Stronger anchoring effect for high O/I participants
        
        Understanding Openness/Intellect
        
        Openness reflects a greater “breadth, depth, and permeability of consciousness”
        
        “Cognitive Exploration/Engagement”
        
        Underpinned by information processing functions of the prefrontal cortex
        
        Openness vs. Intellect
        
        Intellect
        
        Engagement exploration with semantic and abstract information
        
        Logic, ideas, calculation, reasoning, narrative…
        --Consistent with its link with Working Memory
        
        Openness
        
        Engagement exploration with sensory and perceptual information
        
        Aesthetics, visual imagery, spatio-temporal patterns…
        --Consistent with its link with implicit learning of spatio-temporal patterns
        
        Semantic information…
        
        Activity in the anterior PFC and posterior PFC mediated the relation between Intellect (but not Openness) and N-Back task performance
        
        Resource Allocation Theory:
        Do people high on intellect “allocate” more cognitive resources to a task, or do they “have” more resources to allocate?
        
        If high Intellect =‘having’ more resources…
        
        Main effect of Intellect on primary task performance
        
        Intellect should ‘buffer’ against secondary load
        
        If high Intellect = ‘using’ more resources…
        
        Main effect of Intellect on primary task performance
        
        Intellect confers ‘vulnerability’ to secondary load
        
        Smillie et al., 2016
        Primary ‘word search’ task + Interleaved with a secondary working memory task:
        Results:
        
        Intellect (not openness) interacted with secondary load
        
        High load had a stronger effect on primary task performance for those high in intellect
        
        Perceptual information…
        
        e.g., Appraisals of art stimuli
        
        Openness (but not intellect) predicted:
        - Appraisals of images as
        -- more interesting, more pleasing, & more understandable
        
        Likelihood of wanting more information about the art, and the likelihood of wanting to own it
        
        “Mixed Appraisals”
        
        Can art be both ugly and beautiful
        = specific to openness rather than intellect
  - - - 7 UP STUDIES
      - Mischel et al. (1972):
        Marshmallow Test
        
        Delay of gratification protocol.
        
        Longer ‘Wait times’ predict:
        During adolescence…
        
        Higher SAT scores, coping skills
        
        Aggression (lower)
        During adulthood (up to 30 years later)…
        
        Educational achievement
        
        Drug use (lower)
        
        Health
      - McAdams & Olson (2010)
        
        Temper tantrum frequency in early childhood predicts occupational instability
        
        3rd grade aggressiveness predicts adult criminality
    - - If we can't change personality, what's the point of:
        Psychological practice
        Criminology
        Clinical Psychology
        Employee selection
      - Attitudes towards self-improvement
    - - Rank order stability
        
        Test re-test correlations
        
        Indicates that, if one is above average on a trait at 30, the probability of being so at 50 is 83%
        
        Test-retest correlations are:
        
        Relatively high
        
        Increase with age
        
        Trait general (do not vary across diff measures of traits)
      - Mean-Level Change =
        
        Costa & McCrae (1994)
        - O, E & N drop over adult years
        -A and C rise over adult years
        
        General tendency for people to become nicer, more responsible, more set in their ways, less outgoing, and more stable…
        
        Roberts et al. (2006) summary:
        
        Extraversion components show different change trajectories
        
        Social Vitality slowly declines
        
        Social Dominance rises until ~40
        
        Agreeableness and Conscientiousness rise steadily
        
        Emotional Stability shows decelerating rises
        
        Openness plateaus in early adulthood and declines gently in later adulthood
        
        -Negative affect drops and positive affect rises through adulthood
        -Change tends to be positive: “Psychosocial Maturity”
      - Possible sources of mean-level change
        
        Genetic influences
        Evolved ‘maturation processes’
        “Developmental tasks”
        E and O more helpful around reproductive age
        C more helpful during parenting
        
        Environmental effects
        
        Major life transitions / stages / role shifts
        
        Historical events
        
        Cross-cultural comparisons…
        If environments drive mean-level change, then change patterns should differ across markedly different environments
        = McCrae et al. 1999
        Examined age-personality relations in 7,363 persons from Germany, Italy, Portugal, Croatia, South Korea
        
        Results - Personality differences generally matched patterns of mean level change in the US…
        
        King, Weiss, & Sisco, 2008:
        Mean-level personality change in Chimpanzees
        Results
        O, E & N drop over the lifespan
        A rises
        C rose (but not significantly)
        
        Similar patterns to humans – suggestive of cross-species universal maturation
        
        Major life transitions: Transition to work
        Roberts, 1997
        ~100 women followed up for ~20 years (early 20s-40s), from late 1950s-1980s
        Results =
        
        Greater participation in the workforce associated with increases in ‘agency’ (part of E)
        
        Potentially contributes toward typical mean level changes
        
        A new cohort hypothesis…
        
        Focused on iGen
        
        Total parental/adult supervision creates heightened vulnerabilities in adulthood
        
        Purportedly explains…
        Trigger warnings
        Micro-aggressions
        ‘Moral panic’
    - - Genetic influences
        
        Probabilistic influences of genes on behaviour/experience
        Environmental channeling
        
        ‘Settling down’: increased stability in environment, friends, routine etc
        Environmental selection
        
        We seek environments that match, support, and maintain our traits
      - Genetics…
        
        Longitudinal twin studies: Can estimate the influence of genetic vs. environmental influences on stability
        
        70-90% of stability owing to genetic factors
        70% of change owing to environmental factors
      - Environmental channelling…
        Rank order stability was higher for couples with more similar personalities
      - Environmental selection…
        
        Assortive mating—“Birds of a feather flock together”
        
        Migration: People prefer to live among people with similar personalities, values, interests, etc.
        
        Vocational choice:
        People gravitate toward educational and vocational career paths that ‘fit’ their personality
    - - Part of ‘implicit personality theory’: laypeople’s understandings of traits and trait structure
        May impact on our decision making – choices now might be influence by how much we expect to change
      - Haslam et al. (2007)
        Beliefs about normative mean level personality change through the lifespan are reasonably accurate
        However ...
        People may underestimate the extent to which their own personality will change in the future
        The “end of history illusion”: the tendency to believe that we are ‘complete’ when we are always ‘works in progress’
        Implications for decision-making:
        
        Marriage, tattoos, house purchases, career choice…
      - Quoidbach et al., 2013
        
        Computed average of absolute difference in all big five trait scores to index predicted change and reported change…
        
        Replication studies conducted, adding other attributes (values and interests)
        
        Study 2 =
        
        Contrasted the remembered and predicted changes in personality to actual changes in personality in a separate longitudinal sample
        
        Actual personality change was virtually identical to the magnitude of reported change in the ‘reporter’ condition, but substantially larger than the magnitude of predicted change in the ‘predictor’ condition..
        
        Study 3 =
        Past concert participants willing to pay $80, but future concert participants willing to pay $129
    - - The role of unique experiences
        
        Changes in conscientiousness predict changes in health
        Mediated by changes in ‘health promoting behaviours’
        
        Neuroticism predicts mortality
        Changes in neuroticism predict mortality, with high and increasing neuroticism predicting an earlier death
        
        Transition to work (again)
        
        Personality predicted positive work experiences (occupational attainment and financial security)
        But, positive work experiences also predicted changes in personality (increased E, decreased N)
        
        Extraversion/Affiliation – individual change but no mean level change
        
        Neuroticism – individual and mean level change
        
        Changing social roles…The Mills Study =
        
        Period of shifting role changes for women
        
        Women who became mothers between college and age 27 became more responsible, tolerant and feminine, and less sociable and self-accepting than women who did not become mothers
        
        From age 21 to 43, women who became homemakers showed smaller increases in independence than divorced or childless women
      - Does travel ‘broaden the mind’?
        
        Short term: higher E and C
        Long term: higher E and O
        Effects of travel
        Increases in O and A
        Decreases in N
        
        Further observations =
        C = short term travel; career aspirations?
        O = long term travel; seeking greater immersion?
        For O and N, personality change was mediated by increases in ‘relationship gains’
        Greater tolerance/understanding and social support?
      - Do clinical interventions change personality?
        
        Lasting changes especially for decreased neuroticism, and (to a lesser extent) increased extraversion
        
        No moderating role for kind of therapy (e.g., pharmacological, cognitive behavioural etc)
        
        Greater effects for some presenting problems than others (e.g., anxiety vs. substance use)
      - Anticipating vs. responding to life events?
        
        Do we (knowingly or unknowingly) change our personalities in anticipation of life events?
        
        Denissen et al., 2018:
        
        Most personality change effects were in anticipation of a major life event
        
        Increases in conscientiousness and openness prior to employment
      - Can we choose to change?
        
        ‘Free traits’ and ‘Personal Projects’
        Little (2000):
        
        From acting ‘out of character’, to resolving to become more social/kind/disciplined etc
        
        Distribution Density Hypothesis (week 1)
        Fleeson (2001): Traits are ‘merely’ distributions of states
        Introverts often act extraverted, etc
        Are we motivated to act counterdispositionally?
        
        We change our personality states to pursue goals
        
        McCabe & Fleeson, 2012 :
        Extraversion and goal pursuit
        
        Most of the variance in state extraversion was predicted by momentary goals:
        
        Volitional Personality Change?
        Do people want to change? = Yes:
        
        Previous research suggests ~90% of people want to change their personality in some way
        
        In both studies people desired, on average increased E, O, A, C and decreased N
        
        Do people change as desired? = Yes:
        
        In both studies: Increased E, O, A, C and decreased N over time
        
        How did they change?
        Counter-dispositional behaviour:
        Goals -> personality states -> change in traits
        For E, A and N only
        But also personal identity?
        Goals -> change in traits -> personality states
        For E, C and N only
- - - - Pain elicits release of dopamine and endogenous opioids, which have been linked to learning, motivation, and the experience of pleasure
      - molecular imaging studies have demonstrated that the opioid system remains activated after the cessation of pain.
      - The state of euphoria experienced by some people after intense exercise, often referred to as “runner’s high,” is also underpinned by endogenous opioid release.