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ocial
sychology
Roy F. Baumeister
Kathleen D. Vohs
Jealousy is an unpleasant emotion that arises when one perceives that some important aspect of one's relationship with another, or the relationship itself, is being threatened by someone else (a rival). For exam- ple, a person is likely to experience jealousy if his or her romantic partner appears to be emotionally or sex- ually interested in someone else. The term jealousy also applies to feelings that arise in other types of interper- sonal relationships, such as when children exhibit dis- tress over parents showering attention on a new sibling or when a person feels upset over being excluded by friends who are socializing together. Thus, jealousy requires the involvement of three individuals (the self, the partner, and the rival), which is sometimes referred to as a love triangle. The proposed function of jealousy is to motivate behaviors that will reestablish the relationship between the self and the partner and break up the threatening liaison between the partner and rival. Because close personal relationships provide individ- uals with many physical and psychological benefits, it is important to have psychological predispositions toward maintaining them. In evolutionary terms, it is likely that people who established and protected their relationships typically produced more offspring. Thus, the psychological traits that helped maintain relationships would have been selected for and passed down to us through our genes. One possibility is that jealousy may have originally evolved as a response to
competition of siblings who are rivals for a parent's time, attention, resources, and so forth, and was later usurped for the purpose of keeping friendships and romantic relationships together.
Although few would doubt that jealousy involves neg- ative feelings, there is no unanimous consensus on the exact nature of the distress. The feelings we call jeal- ousy may be a blend of other more basic feelings, par- ticularly of anger, fear, and sadness. One possibility is an individual may experience all of these emotions simultaneously during a jealous episode. Another pos- sibility is, rather than experiencing several different emotions at once, a person experiences a series of dif- ferent emotions over the course of a single jealousy episode. Which emotion is experienced would depend on what one focused or ruminated on. For example, thinking about the loss of the relationship might elicit sadness, while thinking about the partner's betrayal might elicit anger. A final possibility is that jealousy is its own distinct emotional state that elicits feelings and behaviors that are different from other emotions such as fear and anger.
Importance and Consequences of Jealousy
Jealousy can have powerful personal and social con- sequences. While it sometimes can lead to positive outcomes by redirecting a loved one's attention to the self and reestablishing bonds, it also can have serious
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negative costs. For example, jealousy is frequently implicated as a factor in spousal abuse and often ranks as the third or fourth most common motive in nonac- cidental homicides across cultures. The first signs of jealousy appear to occur early in life. Some research suggests that a parent merely directing attention to another child is, in and of itself, sufficient to elicit jealousy in infants as young as 6 months. These infants displayed more negative emo- tion when their mothers interacted with a life-like baby doll, relative to when their mothers behaved the same way toward a nonsocial toy (e.g., a book). This suggests that complex cognitions are not needed to elicit at least some primitive form of jealousy in infants. However, with development, social and cogni- tive factors become increasingly important. Even by preschool age, the specifics of a social triangle influ- ence whether jealousy arises. For example, 4-year- olds demonstrated more jealousy when their mothers interacted with a similar-aged peer than when she interacted with an infant, whereas younger infants' jealousy was not affected by the rival's age. Thus, one of the changes that occurs with development is that a person's appraisal or assessment of the exact nature and meaning of the loved one and rival's interactions become increasingly important in whether jealousy is experienced. Research on the social-cognitive aspects of jealousy has emphasized two factors that make a loved one's involvement with another particularly threatening:
(1) when it challenges some aspect of a person's self- concept, self-regard, or other self-representations, and (2) when it decreases the quality of the primary rela- tionship. In other words, people ask themselves ques- tions about the meaning of their loved one's relationship to the rival: "What does this say about me? Am I unlovable, unattractive, boring, et cetera?" and "Will this rival relationship impact the important things I get from my relationship with my partner such as attention, affection, and support?" The answers to these questions will affect the intensity of jealousy over potential rival relationships.
Many have wondered whether men or women are more jealous. While studies occasionally find men to be more jealous, others find women to be more jeal- ous. Overall, there seems to be no major consistent differences in men's and women's jealousy. It was
once believed that in men jealousy was a stronger motive for murder than in women. However, careful analyses of murder motives, taking into account men's overall greater propensity for violence, show that a woman who commits murder is as likely to be moti- vated by jealousy as a man who commits murder. One theory that has received a great deal of recent attention predicts that gender differences should exist in jealousy over a romantic partner's infidelity: Men should feel more jealous over sexual betrayal and women over emotional betrayal. This view claims that in our evolutionary past, different threats impacted the number of children that any given man or woman could have. (The basic tenet of modern evolutionary theory is that we inherited our psychological and/or physical traits from the ancestral people who repro- duced the most.) Since fertilization occurs internally within women, men can never know with 100% cer- tainty that an offspring is indeed their own. Thus, ancestral man faced the threat of spending resources (food, time) on children that might not be his own. This would decrease the number of biological children that he had and increase those of someone else, which would help pass the other man's genes on instead of his own. Hence, the theory suggests, men who were particularly vigilant to sexual infidelity could prevent this from happening. Thus, modern men should be par- ticularly jealous of sexual infidelity. Women, however, cannot be tricked into bringing up someone else's off- spring, so they should not be particularly jealous of sexual infidelity per se. Instead, ancestral woman had to be concerned that her mate might give his resources to other women and their children, which would decrease the chances of the woman's own children sur- viving and reproducing. Thus, present-day women should be particularly jealous over emotional infi- delity. Inherent in this is the assumption that a man's emotional involvement is a proxy for his spending resources on another. This hypothesis drew apparent support from early work that found when people were forced to predict whether a partner's sexual or emo- tional infidelity would be more upsetting, more men than women picked sexual infidelity. However, recent research with other measures and with people who have actually experienced a loved one's infidelity have not found consistent gender differences in jealousy over sexual and emotional infidelity. Why might evolution have failed to produce gender differences? One possibility is that a more general jealousy reaction may have benefited both genders.
Jigsaw Classroom———509
Infidelity rarely occurs abruptly; now, and presumably in the ancestral past, those people who would stray engage in flirting behaviors (e.g., increased eye con- tact and smiling) well before they have sex. These same behaviors can signal the beginnings of emo- tional interest, sexual interest, or both. Thus, there may be no need for men and women to have evolved jealous reactions tuned to different events. Instead, both sexes might best prevent either form of infidelity by being alert to the common early warning signs of either. This hypothesis is consistent with the emerging evidence that men and women show similar reactions to sexual and emotional infidelity. Gender differences, however, are found in one type of jealousy, namely, clinical cases of pathological jealousy (also called morbid jealousy). Patients suffer- ing form this disorder show a usually delusional con- viction that their romantic partner is cheating on them. Before making this diagnosis, clinicians must think that the patient has weak and implausible evidence of betrayal or has an exaggerated reaction. Patients with pathological jealousy experience intense negative feelings and strong urges to check up on and spy on their partner and sometimes behave aggressively. Men make up approximately 64% and women 36% of pathological jealousy cases. Recent research suggests that, in some cases, pathological jealousy is a form of obsessive-compulsive disorder, which sometimes can be successfully treated with the antidepressant med- ication, fluoxetine.
Christine R. Harris
See also Attachment Theory; Emotion; Need to Belong
Harris, C. R. (2004). The evolution of jealousy. American Scientist, 92, 62–71. Salovey, P. (Ed.). (1991). The psychology of jealousy and envy. New York: Guilford Press.
JIGSAW CLASSROOM
Social psychologist Elliot Aronson introduced the jigsaw classroom in 1971, while a professor at the University of Texas at Austin. It was first used as a teaching/learning strategy to help defuse a potentially
explosive situation in Austin—its racially segregated schools were slowly desegregating. The primary pur- pose of the technique was to help teachers eliminate desegregated social patterns that emerged in racially diverse classrooms; likewise, it was applied by teach- ers for defusing violence in desegregated schools, as well as easing social problems among diverse students. It is frequently used in elementary and secondary classrooms and, although less a fixture in college classrooms, it is nonetheless applicable. The name jig- saw is derived from its method of having each student become an informational puzzle piece; that is, students assemble in small groups in which each member becomes an expert at his or her subject or learning task. Each individual shares his or her information with the other members and then presents it to the entire class. Aronson believed the learning environment in tradi- tional classrooms was full of competition, which created an atmosphere of turmoil and hostility. He believed that traditional classrooms often have the tendency to favor the "good" or more advanced students, ignoring those that are less advanced with different learning styles or needs. The concept's original purpose was to reduce racial conflict and promote minority students' learning moti- vation and learning outcome. Another rationale for the jigsaw method underscored the idea that each individ- ual learner was unique, and his or her role as a team member emphasized his or her contribution to the team through the learning process. Specifically, the method utilized cooperative learning, similar to a jigsaw puz- zle, with each piece presenting each student's part in helping other students understand the entire project. Each student is essential because each is responsible for a segment of the project that the teacher assigns to that particular group. In other words, students of jig- saw classrooms have to cooperate and work with each other. Otherwise, their assignments cannot be com- pleted. This cooperation is thought to be a valuable tool in preventing tragic events, such as the Columbine shootings in 1999. Jigsaw classrooms allow students to appreciate each team member's contribution and pres- ence. As a result, hostility and anger diminish when students work together cooperatively. In jigsaw classrooms, teachers can follow 10 steps to implement the jigsaw techniques:
1. Teachers divide the entire class into small groups, with each group consisting of five to six students; the exact number of team members and teams
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depends on both the number of students in that class and the complexity level of the project. Most important, each team should be as diverse as possi- ble, highlighting differences like gender, ethnicity, cultural background, and ability.
2. Teachers assign a student as the discussion leader for each session on a rotating basis. The team leader's duty is to call on other team members in a fair manner to make sure that each member partic- ipates evenly.
3. Teachers divide that particular school day's learn- ing task into several segments, making sure they match the number of students.
4. Teachers assign each student on every team the responsibility for one segment.
5. Teachers allow each student enough time to read over his or her segment in order to become familiar with it.
6. Each student on each jigsaw team is responsible for
a specific segment. The group gets together as
"expert groups," discussing and exchanging their research results. After that, they rehearse the pre- sentation they will make to their individual jigsaw team.
7. Teachers request students to return to their jigsaw team.
8. Students present their segment findings to their team, while other teams' members are encouraged
to ask questions for clarification.
9. Teachers visit each jigsaw team, observing the process and helping team members successfully complete the learning task. In addition, if any team member attempts to dominate or disrupt the team, the teacher should implement an appropriate inter- vention. However, it is recommended that the team leader handle the entire learning task, instead of involving the teacher. The teacher can train team members how to intervene when faced with diffi- cult members.
10. This step centers on assessment. Teachers should administer a quiz based on the group's particular learning task, which helps students understand cooperative learning.
Jigsaw classrooms have several advantages com- pared to traditional teaching methods. From a teacher's perspective, (a) it is easy to implement within the classroom, (b) it can be easily combined with other teaching strategies, (c) there is no time limitation or
requirement when using the strategy, and (d) it increases both retention and achievement of minority students. For students, benefits include that it (a) is an efficacious method of learning; (b) disperses personal- ity conflicts and/or tension in diverse classroom, while creating a more amicable learning environment;
encourages students' listening to their peers;
succeeds in fostering friendships while creating
mutual respect among students, regardless of their individual differences; (e) promotes students' learning motivation and engagement in their tasks more actively; (f) builds up less advanced learners' self- confidence; (g) promotes team building skills; and (h) improves students' research ability, such as gather- ing information, organizing their resources, and so on. A teacher might experience several difficulties when implementing a jigsaw classroom strategy. First, teach- ers have to ensure that students have ample research resources to complete their project. Second, teachers need to spend more time helping less advanced students so they do not produce inferior work within their respec- tive jigsaw group. Third, when dominant students try to control the group, teachers need to be able to effectively deal with the situation. Fourth, teachers need to encour- age bright students to develop the mind-set that helping their team members is an excellent method to prevent boredom.
Cary Stacy Smith Li-Ching Hung
See also Group Performance and Productivity; Prejudice; Stereotypes and Stereotyping
Aronson, E. (2000). The jigsaw classroom. Retrieved December 10, 2006, from http://www.jigsaw.org Aronson, E., & Patnoe, S. (1997). Jigsaw classroom. New York: Longman.
JUSTICE MOTIVE
The justice motive is the idea that people have a basic motive for justice; that is, people have a need to believe that people get what they deserve. Research on the justice motive emphasizes the importance of
Justice Motive———511
justice to people as a goal unto itself. Its origins lie in
a basic understanding people develop early in life
about the kind of world they must be able to assume
if they are to get what they deserve. Evidence for
people's need for justice has been derived from research that examines people's reactions to injustice. There is also reason to believe that sometimes when people are concerned about justice, it is the result of another need or concern they have, and in this case, justice motiva- tion derives from other motives.
Justice and Psychology
A useful place to start a discussion of justice motiv-
ation is the concept of justice itself. Psychology
researchers approach the topic of justice differently than lawyers and legal philosophers do, and often dif- ferently from how it appears in people's everyday lives, where justice is commonly associated with the law, police, and the courts. For psychologists, justice is about the thoughts and feelings people have about the relation between the value of people and their outcomes. Psychological research on justice builds on the observation that people are good at evaluating other people, on one hand, and evaluating their experiences (e.g., winning
a lottery, finding love, becoming ill) and resources
(e.g., wealth and material possessions) on the other. Psychologists refer to experiences and resources com- bined as a person's outcomes. People can rapidly decide whether someone they
meet for the first time is a good or bad person; indeed,
it is one of the first things people want to know. Of
course, each person also has an evaluative sense of him- or herself as a good or not-so-good person, referred to in psychology as self-esteem. People are also good at evaluating outcomes. Getting sick for most people is bad, and getting an increase in salary is good. When considering justice, the question is how does a person's evaluations of people (including themselves) line up with his or her evaluations of their outcomes? When a good person (like you good reader) experiences a good outcome, such as a good-
sized salary increase, others view the situation as just, because there is correspondence in their evaluation of the person and the person's outcome: good with good. However, when the same good person experi- ences a bad outcome, such as being laid off from his
or her job, others will be inclined to view the situation
as unjust, because the evaluations are inconsistent:
good with bad. People are similarly sensitive to the outcomes of bad people. When a bad person such as
a criminal has good outcomes such as a life of com-
fort, people view the situation as unjust, but when the same bad person has a bad experience, say, losing all his or her money, the situation is just. There are of course many intriguing variations and complexities in how people think and feel about justice, including the relative nature of justice judgments; what one person considers just and fair is often different from what others see as just. As you might imagine, this relativity has all sorts of interesting implications, but this entry will set these aspects of justice aside and turn to its primary focus: motivation for justice.
Justice Motivation
Why do people care about justice? Psychologists
interested in answering this question often approach it in terms of motivation. When a person demonstrates
need or desire to reach a goal, others say he or she
motivated. In motivational terms, people care about
justice because of a need they have to experience jus- tice in their own lives and in their social world. Where does the need for justice come from? Interestingly, psychological research has suggested a number of possible origins that fall into two categories depend- ing on the goal involved. Some scholars argue that justice is an ultimate goal people can have, an end unto itself. In this case, the need for justice is understood to be a distinct motive that cannot be reduced to other motives, such as self- interest. This is important because it raises the possi- bility that people may sometimes be motivated to achieve justice at the expense of self-interest. The ulti- mate goal approach to justice motivation is the one that argues that it is psychologically meaningful to talk about a distinct justice motive. The second approach to justice motivation assumes that when people demonstrate a need for justice, they do so as a means to arriving at another goal. In other words, justice is an instrumental rather than ultimate goal. This would be the case, for instance, if people believe that complying with justice rules will help maximize their outcomes: "If everybody plays by the rules, we'll all get what we want." The instrumental goal perspective on justice motivation means that when people appear to have a need for justice, that need is derivative of another need or concern. The list
of needs people have that can give rise to a secondary concern with justice continues to grow, with self- interest arguably at the top of the list. A number of psy- chological justice theories assume that self-interest is a central goal that people are trying to achieve; the the- ories differ on whether self-interest motivation is pur- sued for self-gains in the short term or the long term. The short-term view is that people will behave justly when it is in their self-interest to do so and unjustly when it is not. The longer-term view points out that self-interest needs must be met in the context of ongo- ing relations with others, which gives rise to a social exchange view of justice and self-interest. If people enter into relations with others motivated to gain resources over time, it is in their self-interest to com- mit to social exchange (justice) rules that govern how resources will be distributed and what processes will be used to make decisions. Other, less-resource-oriented theories suggest that people's need for justice arises from other concerns, such as a desire to be regarded positively by others, the need for control, concerns associated with uncer- tainty, and a basic concern with morality. Examination of these various perspectives is beyond the scope of this entry, but their number and diversity highlights the complexity of justice motivation. Thus, when some- one expresses a concern about justice, it is useful to remember that his or her concern may reflect a basic need for justice or derive from another concern, such as increasing the chances of getting what he or she wants or getting respectful treatment from others in order to feel valued.
The Justice Motive
The idea that people have a basic motive for justice has been characterized as the need to believe that people get what they deserve. Because people in this context refer to both oneself and others, the need essentially means that people need to believe in a just world where they not only experience justice in their lives but where it is also important that others experi- ence justice as well. People's concern about justice in the world helps explain why people can be upset by injustices that happen to other people they do not know and who may live far away and in very different circumstances than their own. Not surprisingly, given this descrip- tion, the most extensive theoretical account of the
justice motive comes from the just-world theory,
a theory developed and researched for many years by the social psychologist Melvin Lerner.
According to Melvin Lerner, the justice motive origi- nates in the realization people develop in childhood
that to have the things they want in life, they have to engage in activities in the present that they assume will result in payoffs in the future. In other words, people come to understand delay of gratification. Many of the rewards they value most, such as a rewarding career, require them to work toward a future goal. Put in jus- tice terms, people assume that as good people working toward a future reward, the reward will in fact be forth- coming when the future point arrives, because by that point, they deserve it. The assumption this reasoning is based on is the foundation for the justice motive. For people to believe they will get the rewards they deserve in the future, they must also believe they live in a world where people do in fact get what they deserve. Indeed, to sustain people's efforts to achieve their goals in the future, they must believe in such a world because if they cannot assume people get what they deserve, what is the point of working toward future goals? Lerner argues accordingly that when people reach the point in their childhood (around age 4) when they come to understand delay of gratification, they make
a personal contract with the world. This contract says
that for them to be able to believe in that they will get what they deserve, they must at the same time believe that the world is a just place. This is also what makes the fates of other people important. One's sense of the world as a just place is based not only on one's own experience, but also on the experiences of others and if others experience injustice, that is threatening to one's need to believe in a just world.
The most compelling evidence for the justice motive comes from research examining people's reactions to injustice. The reasoning is as follows: If people have a need for justice, they should be motivated in the face of injustice to respond in ways that are consistent with achieving justice. A common research strategy is to expose people to scenarios involving the suffering of
Just-World Hypothesis———513
an innocent victim. This can be done by having research participants read a story or watch a video where they learn about something bad happening to a good person through no fault of that person. Such experiences create temporary distress, as a result of the injustice associated with the victim's suffering, in much the same way one feels a sense of unfairness and upset when one learns about the suffering of inno- cents in the news. Evidence of other people's unjust suffering is upsetting because it threatens one's belief in a just world. If people are motivated to achieve the goal of jus- tice in their lives, they should respond in such situa- tions in ways that are consistent with achieving that goal. The research suggests this is in fact the case, but there are some intriguingly different ways people do this, some with undesirable consequences. The most straightforward thing people can do is engage in jus- tice-restoring behavior. For instance, they might try to compensate an innocent victim or find justice in pun- ishing the person responsible for the injustice. Such behavioral reactions can be very effective in helping people maintain their just-world beliefs, and it is likely many altruistic deeds one observes in life are based in a desire for justice. However, people are not always able to address injustice through their own actions, for any number of reasons: The size of the injustice is too large or too far away, they do not have the means to address the injus- tice, or they may assume their efforts will be ineffec- tive. Does this mean they abandon their need to believe in a just world when they cannot fix injustice them- selves? The answer from psychological research is "no." In lieu of action, people make psychological adjustments in how they think about events that allow them to sustain the belief. One of the intriguing but troubling ways people do this is to blame the victim. Through selective consideration of the facts, people can convince themselves that a victim or victims are somehow responsible for their suffering and hence deserve their fate. If one can convince oneself that oth- ers deserve their suffering, then one removes any threat to one's ability to believe that the world is a just place. Unfortunately, victim blaming is a common phenome- non. Justice motive research helps researchers under- stand why this is so, given the importance of people's need to believe in a just world. There are other psycho- logical adjustments people can make in the service of the justice motive, but the important point is that there
is extensive evidence that people are motivated to address injustice either behaviorally or psychologi- cally, and the reliability with which they do so provides compelling evidence of the justice motive.
John H. Ellard
See also Blaming the Victim; Just-World Hypothesis; Social Exchange Theory
Hafer, C. L., & Bègue, L. (2005). Experimental research on just-world theory: Problems, developments, and future challenges. Psychological Bulletin, 131, 128–167. Lerner, M. J. (1980). The belief in a just world: A fundamental delusion. New York: Plenum.
JUST-WORLD HYPOTHESIS
The just-world hypothesis is the belief that, in general, the social environment is fair, such that people get what they deserve. The concept was developed in part to help explain observations that to preserve a belief that the world is a just place, people will sometimes devalue a victim. A just world is defined as a world in which people do get what they deserve. The just- world hypothesis is important because it suggests that people may treat certain victims badly, oddly enough, out of a desire to sustain their belief in justice. It also suggests that people may go to great lengths to main- tain a sense that the world is just, giving evidence that the human motivation for justice is very strong.
The seminal experiment illustrating this phenomenon was conducted by Melvin Lerner and Carolyn Simmons in the 1960s. In this experiment, people watched on a television monitor a woman who appeared to be receiv- ing painful electric shocks from a researcher. In actu- ality, the footage was prerecorded and the events were only simulated by actors. As the woman did nothing to deserve the shocks she was receiving, she can be seen
514———Just-World Hypothesis
as suffering unjustly. People who watched this unjust suffering described the victim's character quite nega- tively if they could not compensate her (or at least were not sure they could compensate her) and if they thought that they would continue to see her suffer. People described the victim's character most nega- tively when they also believed that she was behaving
altruistically; that is, she chose to suffer for their sake. The findings were explained by suggesting that people have a strong need to believe that the world is
a just place in which individuals get what they
deserve. Victims who continue to suffer through no fault of their own (and especially very good people, like the altruistic woman in the early experiment) threaten this belief in a just world. As a way of deal-
ing with that threat and maintaining a belief in a just world, people may try to restore justice by helping or compensating victims. When it is not possible to help
or compensate victims, people may reinterpret the sit-
uation by, for example, claiming that a particular vic- tim is a bad or otherwise unworthy person. By devaluing or derogating the victim in this way, his or her fate seems more deserved and people's sense of justice is maintained. There was much controversy about how to interpret the results of the original experiment. For example, some researchers suggested that people devalued the victim to reduce their own feelings of guilt at letting her continue to suffer. However, further experiments showed that people sometimes devalue a victim of injustice even when they could not have played any role in the victim's situation. This and other proposed alternatives were, for the most part, dealt with through further study and argumentation, leading to a general acceptance of the notion that people will sometimes devalue a victim of injustice because they need to believe in a just world.
More Recent Research
Since the early period of experimentation in the 1960s and 1970s, social psychologists have continued to con- duct research on the just-world hypothesis. There have been two main traditions in this later research. First, researchers have continued to conduct experiments to study how people respond when they see, read about, or are otherwise exposed to victims who presumably threaten the need to believe in a just world. This
research has tended to focus on victims of HIV/AIDS, rape, and cancer. Although some researchers have claimed that a number of these experiments have flaws that make it difficult to interpret the results, there is agreement that several of the investigations generally support the just-world hypothesis. Another tradition in the later research on the just- world hypothesis has involved using a questionnaire to measure the extent to which people actually believe that the world is a just place. Researchers then test whether people who believe more strongly in a just world, according to the questionnaire, hold certain attitudes. These studies have shown, for example, that the more people claim that they believe the world is just, the more negative attitudes they have toward the poor, groups of people who are discriminated against in society, and other people who might be seen as vic- tims of injustice. These findings are consistent with the just-world hypothesis.
The just-world hypothesis has several important implications for reactions to victims of injustice. For example, the research suggests that if people feel they cannot help or compensate victims of injustice who continue to suffer, they may react defensively. They may reason that the victims deserved their fate either because of the kind of people they are or because of the way they behaved. If people respond in this way, they may be less likely to react in a more positive manner, like working toward minimizing injustice or offering emotional support. It is important to note that the just-world hypothe- sis is actually part of a broader theory called justice motive theory or just-world theory. The theory includes propositions about how and why a belief in a just world develops in children, the different forms that a belief in a just world might take, the many strategies (aside from blaming and derogating victims of injustice) that people use to maintain a belief in a just world, and the various ways in which justice is defined for different kinds of social relationships.
Carolyn L. Hafer
See also Blaming the Victim; Discrimination; Justice Motive
Hafer, C. L., & Bègue, L. (2005). Experimental research on just-world theory: Problems, developments, and future challenges. Psychological Bulletin, 131, 128–167.
Lerner, M. J. (1980). The belief in a just world: A fundamental delusion. New York: Plenum. Lerner, M. J., & Miller, D. T. (1978). Just-world research and the attribution process: Looking back and ahead. Psychological Bulletin, 85, 1030–1051.
KELLEY'S COVARIATION MODEL
Harold Kelley's covariation principle is a central model within attribution theory, an area of social psy- chology that is concerned with the scientific analysis of the psychology of everyday people. Attribution theory was originally introduced by Fritz Heider in 1958 and assumes that we all want to understand and explain events. For instance, we ask why we succeeded at a task or why our friend liked a movie. The answers to such "why questions" (e.g., "I am smart" or "The movie was good") are called causal attributions. Kelley's model explains how laypersons arrive at such attributions; hence, it is a scientific theory about naive theories.
For both scientists and laypersons, explanations con- sist of effects to be explained (e.g., success at a task or liking a movie) and causes that are used as explana- tions (e.g., high ability or the quality of the movie). Kelley's model applies to all types of psychological effects that laypersons explain, ranging from achieve- ment outcomes to emotional states, and it can be applied to self-perception (e.g., "Why did I fail?") as well as to other perception ("Why did you fail?"). Kelley distinguishes attributions to causes that reside within the person, the entity, and the circum- stances. Person attributions (e.g., "She is a movie fanatic" or "She is smart") rely on stable factors residing
within the person to explain, for example, that person's enjoyment of a movie or his or her success. Entity attributions imply tracing back the effect to sta- ble properties of the object the person interacts with (e.g., we explain the enjoyment with the quality of the movie, or success with task ease). Finally, circum- stance attributions are made when explaining an effect with transient and unstable causes (e.g., when enjoy- ment is traced back to a happy mood or success is attributed to luck). But how do we come to explain a specific effect with one of such causes? Kelley postulates that laypersons use methods akin to those used by scientists, most importantly, experiments. In such experiments, independent and dependent vari- ables are differentiated. For instance, a researcher inves- tigating the influence of color on mood will manipulate color as the independent variable (e.g., putting half of the participants in a blue room and the other half in a red room). Subsequently, she assesses, as the dependent vari- able, participants' mood in both rooms. In such experi- ments, the independent variables are often conceived of as causes or determinants of the dependent variables (e.g., color might be conceived of as a determinant of mood), and the dependent variables are the effects. From this point of view, events to be explained by lay scientists (e.g., success or liking a movie) are the dependent variable, and the possible causes of the event are independent variables. For instance, when I succeed at a task and I ask myself, "Why did I succeed?" success is the dependent variable (i.e., the effect) and the possible causes—the task (entity), my ability (person), or luck (circumstances)—are indepen- dent variables.
518———Kelley's Covariation Model
Whether an effect is attributed to the person, the entity, or the circumstances depends on which of the causes (independent variables) the effect (dependent variable) covaries with. Covariation refers to the co- occurrence of the effect and a cause. To decide whether the entity is the cause, one has to assess whether the effect covaries (co-occurs) with the entity—more specifically, whether there is variation of the effect across objects (entities). Covariation with the entity is given when the effect is present if the entity is present and when the effect is absent when the entity is absent. For instance, when a person succeeds at Task 1 but fails at Tasks 2, 3 and 4, the effect (i.e., success) is pre- sent when Task 1 (i.e., the entity) is present, and it is absent when Task 1 is absent (i.e., when Tasks 2, 3, and 4 are present). In this example, the effect covaries with the task (entity): The manipulation of this independent variable results in an effect of the dependent variable; that is, the task "makes a difference." If, however, the individual succeeds at all tasks in addition to Task 1, the effect (success) does not vary with tasks (there is no covariation between the effect and the entity), or the manipulation of the independent variable (task) does not result in a change of the dependent variable (outcome). Kelley labels information about the covariation between entities and effects distinctiveness. Distinc- tiveness is considered high when the effect covaries with the entity (e.g., the person succeeds only at Task 1). Low distinctiveness indicates a lack of covariation between the entity and the effect (i.e., the individ- ual succeeds at all tasks; the task "does not make a difference"). Information about the covariation of an effect with persons is called consensus. If the effect covaries with the person (only Person 1 succeeds at Task 1, and Persons 2, 3, and 4 fail), there is low consensus (the manipulation of the independent variable "person" results in a change of the dependent variable). If covariation with this independent variable (i.e., the person) is lacking, there is high consensus (i.e., every- body succeeds at Task 1). Finally, high consistency reflects that an effect is always present whenever a certain cause (i.e., the person or the entity) is present. By contrast, low consistency is indicative of the fact that an effect is sometimes present when the cause is absent and sometimes absent when the cause is present. Kelley suggests that there are three combinations of consistency, consensus, and distinctiveness infor- mation which give rise to unambiguous person, entity,
and circumstance attributions. We make person attri- butions when the effect covaries with the person and not with the remaining two causes (entity and circum- stances). This data pattern characterizes, for instance, a situation in which a person succeeds at a task at which nobody else succeeds (low consensus), if he or she also succeeds at this task at different points of time (high consistency) and performs other tasks just as well (low distinctiveness). In this situation, we should attribute success to the person (e.g., his or her ability). Attributions to the entity should be made when the effect covaries with the entity (the person succeeds only at this but not at other tasks; high distinctiveness) and not with the person (everybody succeeds at this task; high consensus) or the point of time (the person always succeeds at this task; high consistency). This pattern is again characterized by the fact that the effect (e.g., success) covaries with one cause (i.e., the entity) but not with the remaining two causes (i.e., the person or points in time). Finally, attributions to the circumstances should be made when there is low consensus, high distinctive- ness, and low consistency—for example, when a person who usually fails at Task 1 succeeds at it at a specific point of time (low consistency), other persons fail at Task 1 (low consensus), and the individual fails most other tasks (high distinctiveness). This covaria- tion pattern differs from the cases that lead to person and entity attributions, as the effect covaries with all of the three possible causes and not (as was the case for the ideal patterns for person and entity attribu- tions) with only one cause. Kelley's prediction that people make unambiguous attributions to the person, entity, and circumstances in these three patterns of information is empirically well established. The model has sparked numerous theoret- ical developments and empirical investigations in the field of attribution and causal induction and continues to be influential into the present. It has been used as a normative model to assess errors and biases, and it served as a conceptual tool for the analyses of a wide range of social psychological phenomena ranging from attribution in close interpersonal relations to attribu- tions of changes in one's heart rate. Current refinements and extensions of Kelley's model focus on whether it specifies all attributionally relevant information and on the cognitive processes involved in making attributions.
Friedrich Försterling
Kin Selection———519
See also Attributions; Attribution Theory; Fundamental Attribution Error; Person Perception
Försterling, F. (2001). Attribution: An introduction to theory, research and applications. East Sussex, UK: Psychology Press. Kelley, H. H. (1973). The processes of causal attribution. American Psychologist, 28, 107–128.
KIN SELECTION
Otherwise known as inclusive fitness theory, kin selection refers to the theory that people have evolved to favor others who are genetically related to them. The logic of the theory is that a gene can propagate itself through two routes. The first is by increasing the likelihood that the body in which it resides (the self) will survive and reproduce (e.g., by leading to the selection of nutritious foods and fertile mates). The second is by increasing the reproduction of close rel- atives (kin) who also possess copies of the same gene (e.g., by leading the self to help kin in ways that increase the chances that they will reproduce and the gene will be passed on). Some of your kin are more closely related to you than others and therefore are more likely to carry your genes. Thus, because you share 50% of your genes with your siblings, but only 12.5% with your cousins, you should be much more likely to help siblings than cousins. According to the theory of inclusive fitness, parental care for offspring is a special case of kin selection, as it is yet another case of people (or animals) providing care for closely related kin who carry shared genetic material.
History and Modern Usage
The theory of kin selection is widely regarded as the most important theoretical development in evolution- ary thinking since Charles Darwin, as it proposes a mechanism that explains why individuals would
altruistically help others (i.e., why they would provide resources to someone else at a cost to themselves). The idea of altruism seems counterintuitive from a Darwinian perspective, as any behavior that increases the likelihood that another individual will survive or reproduce at a cost to one's own survival or reproduc- tion should be selected against. But if this altruistic behavior enhances the survival or reproduction of a related individual to a greater degree than it dimin- ishes one's own chances, then, according to the the- ory, such behavior would be selected for. To give
a concrete example, I may be willing to endanger
myself by alerting my siblings when there is a preda-
tor afoot, even if my own shouting makes the predator more likely to see me. Although this behavior puts me
at risk, it has the potential to result in greater replica-
tion of the genes that I carry than if I kept quiet and one or more of my siblings were killed.
William von Hippel Martie G. Haselton
See also Altruism; Evolutionary Psychology; Reciprocal Altruism
Buss, D. M. (2004). Evolutionary psychology: The new science of the mind (2nd ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Daly, M., Salmon, C., & Wilson, M. (1997). Kinship: The conceptual hole in psychological studies of social cognition and close relationships. In J. Simpson & D. T. Kenrick (Eds.), Evolutionary social psychology (pp. 265–296). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
LAW OF SMALL NUMBERS
The law of small numbers refers to the incorrect belief held by experts and laypeople alike that small samples ought to resemble the population from which they are drawn. Although this is true of large samples, it isn't for small ones. So the "law" of small numbers isn't really a law at all, but a fallacy. And as such, it is a law you should feel free to break.
To provide an example, suppose you have an urn con- taining marbles—half of them red and half of them
especially ones with
marbles in them). Suppose further that without look-
ing, you draw 100 of them. What are the odds that
about half of them will be blue? Although it is unlikely that exactly half will be blue (i.e., you proba- bly won't draw exactly 50 blue marbles), the odds are good that it will be close with a sample of 100. With 1,000, the odds are even better—and they keep getting better until your sample reaches infinity (a fact known as the law of large numbers). But suppose instead you draw a smaller sample, say, only two marbles. There, the odds of half of them
only 50%, to be exact.
being blue is much lower
And with a sample of only one, the odds drop to zero.
blue (statisticians love urns
So whereas large samples tend to resemble the popu- lation from which they are drawn, smaller samples do not.
The problem is that for most of us, this fact is coun- terintuitive. People tend to expect small samples to behave just like large ones, a fallacy that leads to all sorts of errors in everyday judgment and decision making. For instance, when people are asked to mentally generate a sequence of "random" coin tosses, their sequences tend to be anything but. That is, people expect there to be many more alternations than would be expected by chance. In other words, they expect not only the entire sequence to contain approxi- mately 50% heads, but each portion of the sequence to contain approximately 50% heads as well. The same is true in the world of sports. When people observe a basketball player make several baskets in a row, they assume it must because he or she is "hot." They forget that because the sample size is small, such coincidences are not only unsurprising, they are inevitable. In fact, when a group of scientists examined the shooting pattern of professional players, they found something remarkable—there is no such thing as the "hot hand" in basketball. That is, players are no more likely to make a shot after making the previous shot (or shots) than after missing the previ- ous shot (or shots). Despite this fact, people continue to believe in the hot hand, one of several by-products of the mistaken belief in the law of small numbers.
Jeremy Burrus
Justin Kruger
See also Decision Making; Gambler's Fallacy; Hot Hand Effect; Research Methods
522———Lay Epistemics
Gilovich, T. (1991). How we know what isn't so: The fallibility of human reason in everyday life. New York:
Free Press. Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1971). Belief in the law of small numbers. Psychological Bulletin, 76, 105–110.
LAY EPISTEMICS
The concept of lay epistemics concerns the process through which individuals (lay persons and scientists alike) attain their subjective knowledge. A theory of lay epistemics has been outlined in two volumes by Arie W. Kruglanski published 15 years apart, and the relevant empirical research has been presented in numerous theoretical and research articles in the sci- entific literature in personality and social psychology. The theory of lay epistemics describes the cognitive and motivational factors that determine the forma- tion and alteration of human knowledge on all topics. Knowledge is defined in terms of propositions (or bodies of propositions) in which individuals have a given degree of confidence. This conception requires that the contents of knowledge be considered by the individual, implying a phase of hypothesis genera- tion, and that they be assessed as to their validity (their warrant of confidence), implying a phase of hypothesis testing. According to the lay epistemic theory, hypotheses are tested via relevant evidence. Relevance, in turn, is determined by preexisting inference rules that in an individual's mind tie the evidence to the conclusion in an if-then fashion. This theory assumes that all infer- ences or judgments are rule based, including such automatic and unconscious judgments as involved in people's perceptions of objects in their environment, the (erroneous) inferences they may draw from momentary mood states to their general levels of life- satisfaction and so on. By assuming the inevitabil- ity of rules in the mediation of judgments, the lay epistemic theory affords a unimodel that integrates numerous dual process models proposed in different domains of social cognition. In principle, the individual may continue generating further and further rule-like hypotheses linking the same category of evidence to different conclusions. For instance, one might link one's good mood at a given moment to one's general level of happiness and success, but also consider the alternative possibility
that the good mood was caused by a drink one had just imbibed, by the fact that one's country won a soccer match, and so on. Given such a plethora of alternative possibilities, the individual may feel confused and uncertain. To attain certainty, therefore, one's genera- tion of alternative possibilities must come to a halt. The theory of lay epistemics identifies two categories of conditions affecting the cessation (or conversely, the initiation) of hypothesis generation: long-term capa- bility and epistemic motivation. Long-term capability relates to the availability of constructs in memory pertinent to a given issue or question, and short-term capability relates to their momentary accessibility. Epistemic motivations are conceptualized as the cog- nitive state the knower wants to attain. Two issues are critical here:
1. Whether the knower desires to achieve or desires to avoid the state of cognitive closure, defined as a firm judgment on a topic and contrasted with confusion and ambiguity
2. Whether such desired or undesired judgment has specific (appealing or unappealing) contents (e.g., a desirable content might be that one is healthy, and an undesirable one that one is not) or is nonspecific—its desired or undesired nature stemming from its con- stituting a judgment (closure) or an absence of judg- ment (a lack of closure)
This analysis yields a typology of four motivational orientations, referred to as needs for the following:
1. Specific closure
2. Avoidance of specific closure
3. Nonspecific closure
4. Avoidance of nonspecific closure
Each motivational orientation is assumed to depend on the perceived benefits of attaining or costs of failing to attain the correspondent epistemic state (e.g., 1 through 4 in the previous list). Such costs and benefits can differ across situations (e.g., under time pressure, uncertainty may be more unpleasant than in the absence of pressure) as well as be based on stable individual characteristics. For instance, some individ- uals more than others may desire nonspecific closure (e.g., be intolerant of uncertainty or ambiguity), some individuals more than others may desire to avoid a specific closure (e.g., being labeled as a failure), and
so forth. The epistemic motivations have been shown to exert important influence on individual judgment and decision-making processes (by initiating or halt- ing such processes), and on such interindividual phenomena as persuasion, communication, empathy, and bargaining. The need for nonspecific closure in particular has been shown to lead to a behavioral syn- drome referred to as group-centrism that includes pressures toward opinion uniformity, endorsement of autocratic leadership, ingroup favoritism and outgroup derogation, the rejection of opinion deviates, and an intolerance of diversity.
Contributions of the Lay Epistemic Theory
The lay epistemic theory has contributed to the under- standing of social psychological phenomena in two distinct ways:
1. By generating novel testable predictions explored in empirical research
2. By affording a conceptual integration of numerous, heretofore separate, topics in social cognition
Such predictions concerned individuals' cogni- tive and social interaction styles, their political pref- erences, and their reactions to events around them (e.g., to organizational change taking place in their work place). The predictions also concerned the conditions under which the information given would affect the individuals' judgments and those under which it would not, despite its obviousness to external observers. These issues have considerable real-world relevance relating as they do to (1) cir- cumstances in which individuals fail to "see it com- ing" in military, political, or technological realms fostering immense debacles (e.g., the Pearl Harbor surprise attack, or the breakdowns of the Challenger and Columbia space shuttles), (2) conditions afford- ing or forestalling intercultural communication, and so on. Its broad, content free nature allowed the lay epis- temic theory to integrate numerous specific domains of social psychological inquiry including the synthesis of attribution with cognitive consistency theories and an integration of the plethora of dual process models under a common set of principles.
Arie W. Kruglanski
See also Cognitive Consistency; Dual Process Theories; Motivated Cognition
Chaiken, S., & Trope, Y. (1999). Dual process theories in social psychology. New York: Guilford Press. Kruglanski, A. W. (1989). Lay epistemics and human knowledge: Cognitive and motivational bases. New York:
Plenum. Kruglanski, A. W. (2004). The psychology of closed mindedness. New York: Psychology Press. Kruglanski, A. W., Erb, H. P., Pierro, A., Mannetti, L., & Chun. W. Y. (2006). On parametric continuities in the world of binary either ors. Psychological Inquiry, 17(3), 153–163. Kruglanski, A. W., Pierro, A., Mannetti, L., & DeGrada, E. (2006). Groups as epistemic providers: Need for closure and the unfolding of group centrism. Psychological Review, 113(1), 84–100. Kruglanski, A. W., & Thompson, E. P. (1999). The illusory second mode, or the cue is the message. Psychological Inquiry, 10(2), 182–193. Kruglanski, A. W., & Thompson, E. P. (1999). Persuasion by a single route: A view from the unimodel. Psychological Inquiry, 10(2), 83–110. Kruglanski, A. W., & Webster, D. M. (1996). Motivated closing of the mind: "seizing" and "freezing." Psychological Review, 103(2), 263–283.
People are obsessed with leaders. People gossip about the boss; airport bookshops bulge with leadership books; current affairs analyzes the actions of leaders; and much of organizational science is about leader- ship. This is not surprising. Leaders have enormous influence over their followers—leaders make deci- sions for their followers and shape the course of their lives and even the type of people they are, and so fol- lowers are focused on how effective their leaders are; how they are elected, appointed, and deposed; and whether they lead for good or for evil.
Leadership is a process whereby an individual, or clique, is able to influence others to internalize a col- lective vision and mobilize them toward attaining that vision. Effective leadership transforms people's goals and ambitions, even their identities, and replaces
524———Leadership
self-oriented behavior with group-oriented behavior. The exercise of power over people to force them, through rewards and punishments, to comply with commands and bend to one's will is not leadership.
Personality Attributes of Great Leaders
Although leadership is a group process (leaders require followers), leadership research has a long history of focusing on attributes of leaders alone that make them effective—great leaders. The 19th-century belief that leaders are born rather than made is no longer in vogue—research has failed to find "great leader" genes. However, the idea that some people have per- sonalities, however acquired, that predispose them to lead effectively in all situations, whereas others do not, has attracted enormous research attention. A definitive review published in 2002 concluded that three of the Big Five personality dimensions are associated with effective leadership: Extraversion, Openness to Experi- ence, and Conscientiousness. Overall, however, person- ality does not allow people to differentiate between effective and ineffective leaders very reliably.
What Do Effective Leaders Do?
Maybe some leadership behaviors are more effective. One reliable distinction that has emerged is between a leadership style that pays more attention to the group task and getting things done (task-oriented leadership) and one that pays attention to relationships among group members (socioemotional leadership). Most groups require both types of leadership and people who are capable of being both task-focused and socio- emotionally focused tend to be the most effective.
Interactionist Perspectives
However, different situations and different group activities call for different emphases on the task or on relationships—in which case, the relative effective- ness of task-oriented and relationship-oriented leaders may be contingent on properties of the leadership sit- uation. This idea is reflected in Fred Fiedler's contin- gency theory of leadership, very popular in the 1970s; one strength of this theory was that Fielder had a novel way to measure both leadership styles (the least- preferred coworker scale) and classify how well struc- tured situations were. Generally, relationship-oriented
leadership was most effective unless the group task was very poorly structured or very well structured. Another interactionist perspective is normative decision theory. Leaders can choose to make decisions autocratically (subordinate input is not sought), con- sultatively (subordinate input is sought, but the leader retains authority to make the final decision), or as a genuine group decision (leader and subordinates are equal partners in shared decision making). The rela- tive efficacy of these strategies is contingent on the quality of leader-subordinate relationships and on task clarity and structure. Autocratic leadership is fast and effective if leader-subordinate relationships are good and the task is well structured. When the task is less clear, consultative leadership is best, and when leader- subordinate relations are poor, group decision making is best. A third interactionist theory is path-goal theory, which assumes that a leader's main function is to moti- vate followers by clarifying the paths that will help them attain their goals. Leaders do this by directing task-related activities (structuring) or by addressing followers' personal and emotional needs (considera- tion). Structuring is most effective when followers are unclear about their goals and how to reach them, and consideration is most effective when the task is boring or uncomfortable.
Transactional Leadership
Another way to look at leadership is as a transaction between leaders and followers—the leader does something benefiting followers, and followers in turn allow the leader to lead. Eric Hollander coined the term idiosyncrasy credit to describe a transaction in which leaders who initially conform to group norms and therefore serve the group well are subsequently rewarded by the group by being allowed to be idio- syncratic and innovative—key features of effective leadership. One key transactional leadership theory is leader- member exchange (LMX) theory. Because leaders have to relate to many subordinates, they differentiate among them and develop different LMX relationships with different subordinates—the quality of these rela- tionships range from those based on mutual trust, respect, and obligation (high-quality LMX relation- ships), to those mechanically based on the formal employment contract between leader and subordinate (low-quality relationships). Effective leadership rests
Learned Helplessness———525
on the development of high-quality LMX relation- ships with as many subordinates as possible—these relationships motivate followers and bind them to the group.
Transformational Leadership and Charisma
Leaders typically are innovative and able to mobilize followers to buy and implement their new vision for the group—they are transformational. Transfor- mational leadership is characterized by (a) careful
attention to followers' needs, abilities, and aspirations,
(b) challenging followers' basic thinking, assumptions,
and practices, and (c) exercise of charisma and inspi-
ration. Charisma is central for transformational leader- ship (there is much talk about charismatic or visionary leaders and leadership), which has engaged a debate among scholars (a) about whether this is a return to older personality perspectives on leadership, and
(b) about how one can distinguish between charisma in
the service of evil (Slobodan Miloševic′) and charisma
in the service of good (Nelson Mandela).
Stereotypes of Leadership
According to leader categorization theory, people have stereotypical expectations (schemas) about the attributes an effective leader should have in general, or in specific leadership situations. Once a person cate- gorizes someone as a leader, the person automatically engages the relevant leadership schema—the better the match is between the leader's actual characteris- tics and the leadership schema, the more favorable are the person's evaluations of the leader and his or her leadership. Stereotypical expectations might affect leadership in two other ways. According to status characteristics theory, in a task-oriented group, a person's evalua- tions of effective leadership rest on whether he or she believes the leader has the attributes to perform the group task, called specific status characteristics, and whether the leader is a member of a high-status group in society and therefore possesses attributes that are valued in society, called diffuse status characteristics. Role congruity theory focuses on gender and lead- ership. The argument is that stereotypes of women typically do not match well with schemas of effective leadership, and thus in many leadership situations, women find it difficult to be endorsed as effective
leaders. There is an incongruity between the attributes of the leadership role and the stereotypical attributes of women.
Social Identity and Leadership
According to the social identity theory of leadership, a key function of leadership is to forge, transform, and consolidate one's identity as a group member—one's social identity. The implication of this is that if mem- bership in a group is important to a person, particularly to his or her sense of self, the person is more likely to be influenced by a leader who matches his or her understanding of what the group stands for (a leader who is prototypical of the group) than by one who does not. Effective leadership in such groups rests signifi- cantly on being perceived by one's followers as being prototypical, even to the extent that general attributes of good leadership decline in importance. One reason why leaders who are prototypical members of subjec- tively important groups can be effective is that follow- ers believe that because their identity and that of the group are closely matched, the leaders treat members fairly and must be acting in the best interest of the group, so they are therefore trusted and allowed to be innovative.
Michael A. Hogg
See also Attributions; Schemas; Social Identity Theory
Goethals, G. R., Sorenson, G. J., & Burns, J. M. (Eds.). (2004). Encyclopedia of leadership. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Hogg, M. A. (2007). Social psychology of leadership. In A. W. Kruglanski & E. T. Higgins (Eds.), Social psychology: A handbook of basic principles (2nd ed.). New York: Guilford Press. Yukl, G. (2002). Leadership in organizations (5th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
What happens when people encounter obstacles in solving problems and are unable to avoid negative out- comes (e.g., academic failure, interpersonal rejection)? Will they persevere in trying to control the course of
526———Learned Helplessness
events and invest more efforts in improving their performance or give up and withdraw from the frus- trating situation? What are the consequences of this painful experience for a person's emotional state and psychological functioning? Dealing with these ques- tions, hundreds of experimental studies, conducted dur- ing the 1970s and 1980s, have exposed people to inescapable failures in a wide variety of tasks and have found that participants apparently give up trying, pas- sively succumb to the failure, and show performance deficits in a subsequent task. These responses, which reflect the emotional and behavioral interference pro- duced by the inability to control undesirable life events, have been labeled "learned helplessness."
The first study of learned helplessness was conducted with dogs by Martin E. P. Seligman and Steven F. Maier in 1967. In this study, dogs were randomly divided into three groups. One group (the neutral group) received no electric shock. A second group (the escape group) received 64 electric shocks, which dogs could escape by pressing a panel located on either side of their heads. In the third group (the helplessness group), each dog received the same number and dura- tion of shocks to those received by a dog in the escape group. However, whereas dogs in the escape group ended the shock by their own responses, dogs in the helplessness group could not control shock termina- tion (which came only when the dog from the escape group delivered the required response). Twenty-four hours later, all the dogs performed a new learning task (jump over a barrier to avoid electric shocks). Dogs in the helplessness group showed worse performance in the new task than dogs in both the escape and neutral groups. Specifically, dogs in the helplessness group seemed to accept the shock without any resistance and were unlikely to cross the barrier to escape from it. In addition, they were slow to learn to avoid the shock even when they discovered the contin- gency between barrier jumping and shock termination. Although they jumped over the barrier occasionally and in so doing stopped the shocks, they rarely jumped again on the next trial. Importantly, although dogs in the escape group were also exposed to aversive shocks, they showed no performance deficits in the new task. On this basis, Seligman and Maier concluded that lack of control rather than the mere exposure to aversive
events produced the performance deficits observed in the helplessness group. In 1975, Donald Hiroto and Seligman extended the study of learned helplessness to humans. In their experiment, undergraduates performed a series of concept formation tasks. In each trial of these tasks, two different geometrical patterns, each composed of five attributes (e.g., shape, color), appeared on each side of a card. Participants were asked to try to figure out which of five attributes (e.g., a star-shape figure) the experimenter had arbitrarily designated as the target attribute. In each of the trials, participants indicated whether the target attribute appeared on the right or left side of the card, and the experimenter told them whether their choice was correct or not. After the 10th card, participants indicated what they thought the target attribute was and were told whether they suc- ceeded or not to learn the concept. During these tasks, participants were randomly divided into three groups. In the neutral group, partic- ipants performed no task and simply waited for the second part of the experiment. In the solvable group, participants received veridical feedback on each trial and at the end of the task. On this basis, participants could learn the target attribute and control the experi- menter's feedback by their own responses. Participants in the third group, the unsolvable group, were exposed to uncontrollable feedback. For them, the experimenter did not select any attribute, instead providing a pre- determined, random schedule of "correct" and "incor- rect" responses during the trials. After the 10th trial, participants in this group were uniformly told that they failed to learn the target attribute. Following the concept formation task, all the participants performed a new task in which they were asked to learn how to escape from an aversive noise. Findings revealed that participants in the unsolvable group were less likely to learn to escape from the noise than were participants in the solvable and neutral groups. According to Hiroto and Seligman, the expo- sure to unsolvable problems might have led people to develop expectancies that they have no available response or strategy for controlling outcomes and altering negative course of events. This expectation can be generalized to the subsequent task, thereby reduc- ing motivation to undertake the new activity ("Why invest efforts in trying to solve a problem if I have no suitable response for solving it?") and interfering with task performance.
Depression and Learned Helplessness
These initial findings were replicated in hundreds of subsequent studies and extended to a wide variety of tasks. The theoretical and empirical interest in the per- formance effects of unsolvable problems dramatically increased when Seligman claimed in 1975 that learned helplessness is a precursor of depression. That is, exposure to uncontrollable adverse circumstances and the resulting expectancy of lack of control can result in depression. According to Seligman, both people exposed to uncontrollable events and those suffering from depression show lowered response initiation, lack of assertiveness and aggression, loss of appetite, feel- ings of sadness and hopelessness, and extreme passiv- ity. Moreover, several researchers have found similar performance deficits among nondepressed people exposed to unsolvable problems and depressed people exposed to solvable or no problems. Originally, Seligman argued that the expectation of lack of control is the main psychological mechanism that explains performance deficits and depression fol- lowing exposure to uncontrollable events. However, with the progress of research and theory, Lyn Abramson, Seligman, and John Teasdale claimed in 1978 that the attributions a person makes about the causes of the failure to control negative events can also explain why and when expectancies of lack of control result in generalized performance deficits and depression. If a person decides that failure is due to stable and global factors that can persist in the future and recur in other situations (e.g., intelligence), the expectancy of control tends to be generalized to new and different tasks and to result in global performance deficits. By contrast, if failure is explained by unsta- ble and specific factors (e.g., tiredness), neither the expectation of uncontrollability nor performance deficits tend to be recorded in new situations. Moreover, if a person believes that failure is due to internal causes that reflect on his or her abilities and personality, expectancy of lack of control can result in depression (e.g., "I'm a failure"). In contrast, attri- bution of the failure to external causes (a difficult task, others' bad intentions) can result in anger and aggres- sion rather than depression. Beyond expectancies of control and causal attribu- tions, subsequent studies have revealed the importance of other psychological mechanisms that can explain
the emergence of performance deficits and depression following exposure to uncontrollable events. For example, the perceived importance of the failure for one's goals and aspirations can moderate these effects, with higher personal relevance of the failure amplify- ing performance deficits and depression. The direction of attention toward one's feelings, thoughts, and inner states (self-focus) also amplifies the performance and emotional deficits produced by uncontrollable events. In addition, exposure to unsolvable problems elicits anxiety, worries, and doubts about one's personal value, which divert attention away from task-relevant activities and can impair task performance. Moreover, people may withdraw effort from the new task as a means to protect their personal value from further damage. Although this self-defeating decision results in performance deficits, people have a good excuse for the failure—poor performance was caused by lack of effort rather than lack of ability.
In the 30 years since the work of Seligman and his colleagues, learned helplessness has become a thriving area of research and has been applied to understanding problems in school achievement; post-traumatic stress symptoms; the detrimental effects of the death of a beloved, chronic illnesses, and aging; and maladaptive reactions of battered women who decide to remain close to their abusive partners. In all these cases, the painful recognition that one has no control over the course and outcome of personal and interpersonal events can result in passivity, resignation, hopeless- ness, and loss of vigor to effectively cope with ongo- ing demands for adjustment and to restore one's emotional well-being.
Mario Mikulincer
See also Depression; Locus of Control; Self-Defeating Behavior
Abramson, L. Y., Seligman, M. E. P., & Teasdale, J. D. (1978). Learned helplessness in humans: Critique and reformulation. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 87, 49–74. Mikulincer, M. (1989). Cognitive interference and learned helplessness: The effects of off-task cognitions on
528———Learning Theory
performance following unsolvable problems. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 129–135. Mikulincer, M. (1994). Human learned helplessness: A coping perspective. New York: Plenum. Peterson, C., & Seligman, M. E. P. (1984). Causal explanations as a risk factor for depression: Theory and evidence. Psychological Review, 91, 347–374. Seligman, M. E. P. (1975). Helplessness: On depression, development and death. San Francisco: Freeman.
The meaning of this term seems simple: Learning theory is the theory about how learning is achieved. Unfortunately, things are not that simple. A funda- mental problem is that the term learning theory seems
to suggest that there is a single, true theory of learn- ing. Although one cannot exclude the possibility that such a theory might be developed, at present, nothing even comes close to the overarching learning theory.
It is unlikely that such a theory will ever be formu-
lated, if only because there are so many different types of learning. The next paragraphs will discuss two gen-
eral types of learning: non-associative and associative learning. Afterward, this entry will focus on theories about associative learning because people often have these theories in mind when they use the term learn- ing theory.
Context and Importance
Different types of learning can be characterized on
the basis of a number of criteria. One of those criteria is whether the change in behavior is caused by the mere repeated presentation of a single stimulus or event or because one stimulus or event is paired with another stimulus or event. These types of learning are called non-associative and associative learning, respectively. Non-associative learning is a fundamen- tal type of learning that can be seen even in very sim- ple organisms. But the mere fact of being exposed to
a stimulus or event also has an important impact on
human behavior. For instance, when you enter a room for the first time, you might pay attention to the tick- ing of the clock that is present in the room. But it is
likely that you will no longer notice the ticking of the clock after a while. So one possible effect of repeated presentation of a stimulus or event is that one habitu- ates to it: One's initial reaction to the stimulus or event decreases in intensity because of the repeated presen- tation. But stimulus presentations can have a whole range of other effects. For instance, the first time that you hear a new song on the radio, you often don't like it as much as after you have heard it a few times. This shows that repeated stimulus presentation can change one's liking for the presented stimulus. Associative learning can be defined as changes in behavior that are due to the repeated pairing of differ- ent stimuli or events. The term conditioning is basi- cally a synonym for associative learning. There are two basic types of conditioning. First, Pavlovian or classical conditioning refers to a change in the reac- tion to a stimulus that is caused by this stimulus being paired with another stimulus. For instance, a dog might initially not react to the sound of a bell, but might start to salivate upon hearing the bell (i.e., change in behavior) when the ringing of the bell is paired repeatedly with the delivery of food (i.e., pair- ing two stimuli). Second, operant or instrumental con- ditioning refers to changes in behavior that are the result of a behavior being paired with a certain stimu- lus. For instance, rats will press a lever more fre- quently (i.e., change in behavior) if that behavior is followed by the delivery of food (i.e., pairing of the behavior and a stimulus). The main difference between the two forms of conditioning is that the animal or person does not have any control over the events in Pavlovian conditioning (e.g., the bell and food are paired no matter what the dog does) but does have an impact on the events in operant conditioning (e.g., the food is presented only if the rat presses the lever). For most of the 20th century, behaviorist theories dominated research on conditioning. These theories postulated that conditioning occurs in an automatic, unconscious way and does not involve any cognitive processes. This long-standing dominance of behavior- ist theories has led to a tendency to use the term learn- ing theory to refer to these theories. But use of the term learning theory is problematic. First, the behav- iorist theories focused mainly on associative forms of learning and not on other forms. Hence, none of these theories provides a theory of all forms of learning. Second, behaviorist theories cannot account for a wide variety of findings in research on conditioning.
LISREL———529
Since the end of the 1960s, it is clear that cognitive processes do play an important role in conditioning. For instance, ample evidence indicates that condition- ing in humans depends heavily on whether the person is aware of the link between the associated events (e.g., the fact that the bell always precedes food). In fact, there is little evidence for automatic, uncon- scious conditioning in humans.
Some have concluded, on the basis of these results, that conditioning does not occur in humans and that learning theory does not apply to humans. But condi- tioning does occur in humans because the behavior of people changes as the result of pairing two stimuli or a behavior and a stimulus. For instance, people do stop at railway crossings because they have learned that the flickering of the lights will be followed by the arrival of a train. Likewise, they will often start to dis- like a certain food when eating that food was followed by nausea. It remains useful to see these associatively induced changes in behavior as forms of conditioning because this provides a framework for studying and understanding these behaviors. Which processes (i.e., automatic or controlled) are involved in conditioning is an important question. Probably several types of processes can play a role under certain conditions. But this question needs to be answered by research rather than by claiming that conditioning is only condition- ing if it is the result of certain (i.e., automatic and unconscious) processes. Because of these potential dangers, it seems best to avoid using the term learning theory unless one specifies which specific theory one has in mind.
Jan De Houwer
See also Attention; Controlled Processes; Mere Exposure Effect
Domjan, M. (2005). The essentials of conditioning and learning (3rd ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning. Schwartz, B., Wasserman, E. A., & Robbins, S. J. (2002). Psychology of learning and behavior (5th ed.). New York:
W. W. Norton.
LISREL
LISREL (LInear Structural RELations modeling) was one of the first statistical computer packages used for structural equation modeling. Created by Karl Jöreskog and Dag Sörbom, it remains one of the most popular programs for such analyses, although numer- ous other programs exist, including EQS, Proc Calis within SAS, and Amos. As with all structural model- ing programs, LISREL provides an extremely power- ful and flexible way to analyze complex data. LISREL essentially assesses the extent to which theorized relations between variables are consistent with observed relations between those variables. The researcher begins by theorizing how a set of variables should be related to each other. For example, he or she might theorize that many measured variables (e.g.,
a verbal test, math test, reaction time test) all relate to
a single underlying construct of generalized intelli-
gence (IQ). This is an example of a "latent variable model." IQ is not measured directly; rather, its exis- tence is inferred because a variety of measured or "observed" variables (the various tests) are them- selves highly related to each other. If the researcher collects the data and the measured tests are not all highly related to each other, a model that assumes a single latent variable may not "fit" the observed data. LISREL provides the researcher with specific, quanti- tative estimates of the extent to which the theorized model fits the observed data. Popular uses of LISREL include tests for the presence of a single latent variable, multiple latent variables, and even latent variables that are nested
hierarchically. A model that tests only for the presence of latent variables is often referred to as a "confirma- tory factor model." Other common uses of LISREL include tests of models in which the researcher theo- rizes a chain of direct and indirect influences among variables. The variables included in such a "path" model can be either observed or latent variables or a mixture of the two. They may all be measured at a sin- gle point in time or involve multiple time-points. Indeed, structural modeling programs like LISREL are often used to analyze longitudinal data. When analyzing data using LISREL, the researcher
is provided a variety of statistics that are useful in
530———Locus of Control
determining how well or poorly the model fits the observed data. These include statistics for individually theorized associations among variables as well as statistics that assess the model as a whole. In addition, the researcher is provided statistics that pinpoint sources of ill fit. Armed with these statistics, the researcher is often tempted to modify the originally theorized model in an attempt to provide a better fit- ting model. Although such modifications will improve fit, they run the risk of capitalizing on chance fluctua- tions in the data and should be replicated in a separate sample before they are trusted. LISREL and other structural equation modeling programs provide powerful tools for testing complex models of psychological phenomena. At the same time, they require a fair amount of mathematical abil- ity and statistical sophistication to use properly.
Jay Hull
See also Structural Equation Modeling
Byrne, B. (1998). Structural equation modeling with LISREL, PRELIS, and SIMPLIS: Basic concepts, applications, and programming. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Byrne, B. (2006). Structural equation modeling with EQS:
Basic concepts, applications, and programming. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. du Toit, M., & du Toit, S. (2001). Interactive LISREL: User's Guide. Lincolnwood, IL: Scientific Software. Kline, R. B. (2004). Principles and practice of structural equation modeling (2nd ed.). New York: Guilford Press.
Who determines one's fate? Is it the person or outside forces beyond the person's control? This question lies at the root of the concept of locus of control. People who believe they are in control of their destinies have an internal locus of control (internals). Those who believe that luck and powerful others determine their fate have an external locus of control (externals).
Locus of control is usually measured by question- naires, just as personality traits are; however, locus of
control is more an attitude than a trait—it measures how one thinks the world works. Some researchers have called locus of control a generalized expectancy— in other words, a person's usual expectation about how things work. One of the first locus of control measures was Julian Rotter's Internal-External Locus of Control Scale, first published in 1966 and used in thousands of articles. Rotter's measure consists of 23 forced-choice pairs; the respondent must choose one of the two statements, one internally oriented and the other externally oriented. For example, one of the pairs is "People's misfortunes result from the mistakes they make" (internal) versus "Many of the unhappy things in people's lives are partly due to bad luck" (external). Most items are general, though a few deal with spe- cific circumstances such as school ("In the case of the well-prepared student there is rarely if ever such a thing as an unfair test") or world affairs ("By taking an active part in political and social affairs, the people can control world events"). These are both internal items. The most popular measure of locus of control in children is the Children's Nowicki-Strickland Internal- External Control Scale. Other scales measure more specialized aspects of control; there has been an espe- cially large amount of research on health locus of con- trol. Several scales (of both general and health locus of control) are multidimensional, as many researchers agree that external control should be divided into con- trol by fate or chance and control by powerful others.
Research has consistently shown that externality is related to negative outcomes. Externals report lower subjective well-being, are more likely to be depressed, display more anxiety, and cope poorly with stress. Externals have weakened self-control and a lessened ability to delay gratification (meaning that they have a difficult time choosing long-term gains over short- term pleasures, something necessary for many life situations, particularly college!) Externals also consistently achieve less in school, as shown in two meta-analyses and numerous individ- ual studies. A widely publicized report by James Coleman and his colleagues concluded that internal locus of control was a better predictor of school achievement in minority children than any other vari- able. Children with an internal locus of control see
Logical Positivism———531
more reason to study and try hard because they believe it will make a difference; externals believe that it won't matter, compromising their performance. Several studies have also linked externality to increased juvenile delinquency. Externality may also lead to a victim mentality, in which people blame oth- ers for their problems. Some authors have argued that the victim mentality encourages self-loathing and the expectation of low functioning and achievement. Externality on health locus of control also leads to negative outcomes such as decreased success in stop- ping smoking or losing weight. People who are exter- nal in locus of control are also less likely to make and keep dentist and doctor appointments; they are also less likely to use birth control consistently. People who truly believe that fate controls everything are less likely to take control of their health.
Locus of control differs along many dimensions. Men tend to be more internal than women, Whites more internal than minorities, middle-class people more inter- nal than lower-class people, and older people more internal than younger people. These four results sug- gest that people with more power are more internal. Locus of control also differs by generation: More recent generations are more external and thus more likely to believe that outside forces determine their fates. This generational shift is so large that the aver- age college student in the 2000s would score at the 80th percentile on the original 1960 distribution (where, of course, the average 1960s college student would score at the 50th percentile). This increase in externality may be at the root of some current trends, such as blaming others for problems. For example, civil lawsuits are more common, and there is anecdo- tal evidence that students (and their parents) are now more likely to argue with teachers and professors. Externality may also help explain the high rates of anxiety and depression observed in recent years. Many young people are also disinclined to get involved in political action or even vote; voter partic- ipation has steadily declined over this period, espe- cially for voters ages 18 to 24. There are also cultural differences in locus of con- trol. Members of more interdependent and traditional cultures often have a more external locus of control. Stricter adherence to social and religious rules may encourage externality. There has been debate about
whether externality may be adaptive in some cases. Many researchers believe that externality is a negative characteristic because it is correlated with poor out- comes. However, other researchers have pointed out that in reality, control is sometimes an illusion and there are some things that people must accept as being out of their control.
Jean M. Twenge
See also Achievement Motivation; Blaming the Victim; Control; Illusion of Control; Power; Self-Defeating Behavior
Rotter, J. B. (1966). Generalized expectancies for internal versus external control of reinforcement [Whole issue]. Psychological Monographs, 80(1), 1–28. Rotter, J. B. (1971). External control and internal control. Psychology Today, 5, 37–59. Twenge, J. M., Zhang, L., & Im, C. (2004). It's beyond my control: A cross-temporal meta-analysis of increasing externality in locus of control, 1960–2002. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 8, 308, 319.
Logical positivism, also called logical empiricism, was an early 20th-century philosophical movement that held that a statement was meaningful only if it could be verified or confirmed through experience. Logical positivism relied exclusively on observable events for knowledge about the world, and therefore considered non-observable events to be basically meaningless. In other words, the only truth is what science can prove.
History, Problems, and Modern Significance
A. E. Blumberg and Herbert Feigl coined the term logical positivism in 1931 to describe the philosophi- cal principles of the Vienna Circle, a group of European scholars. Logical positivists rejected philo- sophical inquiries on the grounds that there was no possible way of verifying them in experience. For example, the statement "abortion is wrong" reflects
532———Loneliness
a person's disapproval of abortion, or attempts to con-
vince others to also disapprove of abortion. In either case, the statement itself does not convey any direct information about the existence or nature of abortion, and is therefore (according to logical positivism) meaningless (e.g., what you think about abortion does not really matter because it is just your opinion). Logical positivists consequently proposed science to be the source for all knowledge about the world because science is grounded in concrete experience and publicly observable events (unlike, for instance, observations gained from introspection). If proposi- tions were inextricably tied to science, logical posi- tivists argued, they could not be too far from the truth. Logical positivism collapsed in the 1940s, largely because of the sharpness of its inevitably created yes- or-no dichotomies: Either a statement is verifiable or it
is not, either a statement is scientific or unscientific. Ironically, this created severe problems because such statements themselves cannot be conclusively verified. Moreover, basing all conclusions on directly observ- able data creates problems as well. For example, a per- son with a headache might complain of pain, lie down, or take aspirin. However, someone faking a headache might objectively exhibit the same overt symptoms. A pure reliance on the observable data would presumably lead to the errant conclusion that both people have headaches, when only one actually does. Problems notwithstanding, logical positivism has nonetheless left its mark on psychology. The behav- iorists in particular quite enthusiastically adopted the premise that scientists should study behavior rather than thought. Most importantly, logical posi- tivism helped endow psychology with the enduring sentiment that one can transform complex proposi- tions about cognitive phenomena into scientifically testable hypotheses about overt behavior and do so in
a way that other researchers—and ideally the general public—can clearly understand the results.
Scott J. Moeller Brad J. Bushman
See also Experimentation; Lay Epistemics
Passmore, J. (1967). Logical positivism. In P. Edwards (Ed.), The encyclopedia of philosophy (Vol. 5, pp. 52–57). New York: Macmillan.
Loneliness is defined as the distressing experience that occurs when one's social relationships are per- ceived to be less in quantity, and especially in quality, than desired. Being alone and experiencing loneliness are not the same thing. People can be alone without feeling lonely and can feel lonely even when with other people. Loneliness is associated with depres- sive symptoms, poor social support, neuroticism, and introversion, but loneliness is not synonymous with these psychological characteristics. Loneliness is typ- ically thought of as a stable trait, with individual dif- ferences in the set-point for feelings of loneliness about which people fluctuate depending on the spe- cific circumstances in which they find themselves. Loneliness changes very little during adulthood until 75 to 80 years of age when it increases somewhat. Loneliness puts people at risk for mental and physical disease and may contribute to a shortened life span.
Although loneliness has always been part of human existence, it has a relatively short psychological his- tory. John Bowlby's attachment theory emphasized the importance of a good attachment bond between the infant and caregiver, and this theory was a forerunner to theories of loneliness. From this perspective, loneli- ness is the result of insecure attachment patterns that lead children to behave in ways that result in being rejected by their peers. Rejection experiences hinder the development of social skills and increase distrust of other people, thereby fostering ongoing loneliness. Attachment theory formed a foundation for an influential psychological theory of loneliness devel- oped by Robert S. Weiss. Weiss identified six functions or needs of social relationships that, if in short supply, contribute to feelings of loneliness. These needs are attachment, social integration, nurturance, reassur- ance of worth, sense of reliable alliance, and guidance in stressful situations. Weiss went on to distinguish loneliness from social isolation (e.g., a lack of social integration) and loneliness from emotional isolation (e.g., the absence of a reliable attachment figure). As would be predicted by attachment theory, Weiss maintained that friendships complement but do not
Loneliness———533
substitute for a close, intimate relationship with a part- ner in staving off loneliness. Widows who remarry have been found to escape from loneliness, but those who merely have other friends still feel somewhat lonely about not having a husband. Another theoretical perspective holds that loneli- ness is characterized by personality traits that are associated with, and possibly contribute to, harmful interpersonal behavioral patterns. For instance, loneli- ness is correlated with social anxiety, social inhibition (shyness), sadness, hostility, distrust, and low self- esteem, characteristics that hamper one's ability to interact in skillful and rewarding ways. Indeed, lonely individuals have been shown to have difficulty form- ing and maintaining meaningful relationships. They are also less likely to self-disclose to peers, and this helps to explain why they report a lack of intimacy with close friends. The cognitive approach to loneliness is based on the fact that loneliness is characterized by distinct dif- ferences in perceptions and attributions. Lonely indi- viduals tend to look at their world through dark-tinted glasses: They are more negative than are nonlonely individuals about the people, events, and circum- stances in their world, and they tend to blame them- selves for not being able to achieve satisfactory social relationships. The "perceived discrepancy" definition of loneliness provided previously represents the cog- nitive perspective. In addition, the cognitive approach largely takes account of the attachment and behavioral perspectives by explaining how (a) failure to meet the need for attachment, social integration, nurturance, and other social needs, results in perceived relation- ship discrepancies that are experienced as loneliness, and (b) loneliness is perpetuated by way of a self- fulfilling prophecy in which poor social skills result in unsatisfactory personal relationships that, in turn, result in negative self-attributions that lead to further social isolation and relationship dissatisfaction. Theories of the self have contributed to theories of loneliness by demonstrating the importance of indi- vidual, relational, and collective selves. These self- identities correspond to aspects of the experience of loneliness or conversely, the experience of connected- ness. For example, at the individual level, if a person's self-concept expands to include an intimate other (e.g., a marital partner), the person is less likely to experience a sense of isolation than if his or her self- concept fails to include his or her partner. Similarly, a network of close friends and relatives protects against
relational loneliness, and group affiliations and mem- berships protect against collective loneliness. All these theories of loneliness fit under the umbrella of an evolutionary account of loneliness. According to the evolutionary model, hunter-gatherers who, in times of famine, chose not to return to share their food with mother and child (i.e., did not place a high priority on maintaining social or family bonds) may have survived themselves, but the same genes that allowed them to ignore their family also made it less likely their genes would survive past the child's generation. In contrast, hunter-gatherers inclined to share food with their family may have lowered their own chances of survival but increased the survival odds of their offspring, thereby propagating their genes. Of course, a hunter-gatherer who survives a famine may then live to have another family another day, suggesting that no single strategy is necessarily best. Such an evolutionary scenario suggests that humans might inherit differing tendencies to experi- ence loneliness. Adoption and twin studies among children and adults have confirmed that loneliness has
a sizable heritable component.
Correlates and Consequences
Practically and ethically, loneliness cannot be easily
manipulated in an experimental setting. This has posed
a challenge to researchers attempting to distinguish
between the causes and consequences of loneliness. One creative approach to this obstacle was a paradigm that employed hypnotic suggestion. Using this strat- egy, highly hypnotizable individuals were asked to relive a time when they felt lonely, and after return from this hypnotic state, to relive a time when they felt highly socially connected. While in these states of social disconnection and connection, participants completed a set of psychosocial measures. The results showed that the states and dispositions that differenti- ate lonely and nonlonely individuals in everyday life also varied with manipulated feelings of loneliness. That is, when participants were induced to feel lonely, compared with nonlonely, they scored higher, not only on a measure of loneliness, but also in shyness, nega- tive mood, anger, anxiety, and fear of negative evalua- tion, and lower on measures of social skills, optimism, positive mood, social support, and self-esteem. Conversely, when individuals were induced to feel that their intimate, relational, and collective social needs were being met, they became characterized by states
534———Looking-Glass Self
and dispositions that were generally more positive and engaged. This experimental study suggests that loneli- ness has features of a central trait—central in the sense that loneliness influences how individuals construe themselves and others, as well as how others view and act toward these individuals. One example of differential construals is that lonely individuals form more negative social impres- sions and interpret the behavior of others in a more negative light than do nonlonely individuals. Negative social expectations tend to elicit behaviors from others that match these expectations. This reinforces the lonely individual's expectations and increases the likelihood that the individual will behave in ways that push away the very people who could satisfy his or her social needs. This has been demonstrated in exper- imental studies in which perceived social threats (e.g., competition, betrayal) cause lonely individuals to respond more quickly and intensely with distrust, hos- tility, and intolerance. The negative, self-protective lens through which lonely individuals view their social world also influ- ences how they interpret and cope with stressful circumstances. Lonely individuals are more likely to disengage or withdraw from stressors, whereas non- lonely individuals are more likely to actively cope (e.g., problem solve) and seek tangible and emotional support from others. Passively coping or withdrawing from stressful circumstances is reasonable in certain instances, but when applied generally to everyday hassles, it can lead to an accumulation of stress that becomes increasingly taxing and oppressive. Increased stress may be at least partially responsible for the risk of mental and physical disease in lonely individuals. For instance, loneliness has been associated with elevated levels of stress hormones, poorer immune functioning, and health-jeopardizing changes in car- diovascular functioning.
Individual differences in loneliness are typically measured using paper-and-pencil questionnaires developed for this purpose. The most frequently used instrument is the UCLA Loneliness Scale, first devel- oped at the University of California at Los Angeles by Daniel Russell and his colleagues. Responses to the 20 items on this scale provide an overall measure of loneliness along a continuum from low to high levels
of loneliness. Other loneliness scales have been designed to measure different dimensions of loneli- ness (e.g., social and emotional loneliness). Some individuals are reluctant or ashamed to report they are lonely, so most loneliness scales avoid using the terms lonely and loneliness.
Louise Hawkley
See also Attachment Theory; Need to Belong; Rejection; Self
Cacioppo, J. T., Hawkley, L. C., & Berntson, G. G. (2003). The anatomy of loneliness. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 12, 71–74. Ernst, J. M., & Cacioppo, J. T. (1999). Lonely hearts:
Psychological perspective on loneliness. Applied and Preventive Psychology, 8, 1–22.
LOOKING-GLASS SELF
The looking-glass self is the process by which people evaluate themselves based on how others see them. According to this theory, people first imagine how they appear to others. Second, they imagine how others judge them based on that appearance. Third,
people have an emotional reaction to that imagined judgment, such as pride or embarrassment. This self- evaluation influences the person's sense of self-worth
or self-esteem. In short, the looking-glass self theory
suggests that we come to know ourselves by reflecting on how others see us.
The looking-glass self was first proposed by Charles Horton Cooley. According to Cooley, self-perceptions are based on reflected appraisals of how others see us (i.e., our impression of others' impressions of us), which are in turn based on how others actually see us. The looking-glass self theory is controversial for
two reasons. First, this view supposes that people have
a good idea of how significant others see them.
Psychological research reveals that people's beliefs
Loss Aversion———535
about how others see them are not very accurate. Indeed, our reflected appraisals of how we think others see us are much more closely related to how we see ourselves than to how others see us. Some researchers have argued that this evidence implies that the looking-glass self theory is actually backward—it could be that people simply assume others see them the same way they see themselves. The second reason why the looking-glass self theory is controversial is that other theories of self- perception provide alternative explanations for how people form their self-views. For example, self- perception theory claims that self-views are based on direct observations of one's own behavior, rather than on how we imagine others see us. Nevertheless, our impressions of what others think of us are extremely important to us. People go to great lengths to obtain feedback about how others see them, such as posting their photographs on a Web site where others will rate their attractiveness. Some researchers have even pro- posed that the main purpose of self-esteem is to serve as an internal "sociometer"—a gauge of our relative popularity or worth among our peers. Some evidence indicates that people's reflected appraisals of how others see them influence their self- views and their behavior, particularly in close rela- tionships. Research on romantic relationships suggests that our reflected appraisals of how our partners see us may be particularly important in this context. This is especially true for people who have doubts about how their partner feels about them. People with negative impressions of how their partner sees them tend to cause strain and dissatisfaction in their relationships.
Simine Vazire
See also Person Perception; Self; Self-Concept; Self- Perception Theory; Symbolic Interactionism
O'Connor, B. P., & Dyce, J. (1993). Appraisals of musical ability in bar bands: Identifying the weak link in the looking-glass self chain. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 14, 69–86. Shrauger, J. S., & Schoeneman, T. J. (1979). Symbolic interactionist view of the self-concept: Through the looking-glass darkly. Psychological Bulletin, 86, 549–573.
LOSS AVERSION
Loss aversion refers to people's tendency to prefer avoiding losses to acquiring gains of equal magnitude. In other words, the value people place on avoiding a certain loss is higher than the value of acquiring a gain of equal size. Consider, for instance, the subjective value of avoiding a loss of $10 compared with gaining $10. Usually, people say that the former has a higher value to them than the latter. Such a preference seems striking, given that, objectively, $10 is $10, regardless whether it is lost or gained. Nevertheless, the aversion toward incurring losses is a strong and reliable effect, and the value of avoiding a loss is usually twice as high as the value of acquiring an equivalent gain.
Theoretical Explanation
Loss aversion can be explained by the way people view the value of consequences. Specifically, the value of a certain consequence is not seen in terms of its absolute magnitude but in terms of changes com- pared with a reference point. This reference point is variable and can be, for example, the status quo. Starting from this reference point, every increase in a good is seen as a gain, and the value of this gain rises with its size. Importantly, this rise does not follow a lin- ear trend but grows more slowly with ever-increasing size. Contrarily, starting from the reference point, every decrease is seen as a loss. Now, the value is neg- ative and decreases with the size of the loss. This decrease also slows down with ever-decreasing size, however, not as fast as on the gain side. Therefore, a gain does not increase subjective value at the same rate as a loss of the same size decreases subjective value. Given that individuals are assumed to maxi- mize subjective value, they should express a prefer- ence for avoiding the loss. Hence, as suggested in the beginning, people usually prefer avoiding a loss of $10 compared with ensuring a gain of equal size. In general, this may be because bad events have a greater power over people than good events.
Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky were first to fully recognize the importance of the loss aversion
536———Lost Letter Technique
phenomenon for a better understanding of human decision making. They made loss aversion a central part of their prospect theory, which explains human decision making in situations when outcomes are uncertain. Of importance, the idea of different values for equivalent gains and losses strongly contradicted the assumptions held so far in classic theories of deci- sion making; namely, that gains and losses of the same size should have the same value for people. However, as abundant empirical evidence in favor of the loss aversion phenomenon demonstrated, the grief of los- ing is stronger than the pleasure of gaining. In subsequent research on the phenomenon of loss aversion, the effect was demonstrated in many domains, including, for example, economic, medical, and social decision making. In addition, it was shown that loss aversion is not limited to decisions under uncertainty but also occurs in situations in which the outcomes of alternatives are certain.
A prominent implication of loss aversion in decisions
with uncertain outcomes is a shift from risk-averse to risk-seeking behavior depending on whether a situa- tion is framed as a gain or as a loss. Given that refer- ence points are not fixed but depend on the specific
situation, two alternatives that are equivalent from the standpoint of rational decision making (receiving $10 versus not losing $10) can result in different choices if one of the decisions is seen in the context of gains and the other in the context of losses. Consider the so- called Asian Disease Problem with which Kahneman and Tversky confronted participants in an experiment.
In this problem, participants were told about a hypo-
thetical outbreak of an unusual Asian disease threaten-
ing to kill 600 people in the United States. Participants had to choose between two alternatives to counteract this disease. One alternative was risky, saving all 600 people with a probability of one-third but otherwise all
people would be killed. In the other alternative,
people were saved and 400 were killed. If this
problem was presented in a gain frame by mentioning how many lives in each alternative could be saved, most participants avoided risk and opted for the certain option. But if the problem was presented in a loss frame by mentioning how many people could die in each alternative, participants opted for the risky alter- native. This puzzling result can be explained by loss aversion. The higher value of avoiding losses com- pared with gains makes the one-third probability of
nobody getting killed much more attractive in the loss frame than it is in the gain frame (framed as saving 600 lives). Consistent with the assumptions of the prospect theory, people seem to avoid risk in gain frames while seeking risk in loss frames. Other implications of loss aversion occur for deci- sions with certain outcomes. One of these implica- tions is the status quo bias. This is the tendency to remain at the status quo because the disadvantages of changing something loom larger than the advantages of doing so. The mere ownership effect (also called endowment effect) is a related phenomenon also explained by the differences in the value of losses and gains. Here, the mere possession of an object makes it more valuable to a person relative to objects the per- son does not own and to the value the person would have assigned to the object before possessing it. This is because giving the object away means a loss to the person, and following the loss aversion phenomenon, losses weigh more heavily than gains. The compensa- tion for giving up a good, therefore, is usually higher than the price the person would pay for it to possess it (which would mean to gain it). Both the status quo bias and the endowment effect have strong implica- tions for economic and social situations.
Patrick A. Müller Rainer Greifeneder
See also Bad Is Stronger Than Good; Mere Ownership Effect; Prospect Theory
Baumeister, R. F., Bratslavsky, E., Finkenauer, C., & Vohs, K. D. (2001). Bad is stronger than good. Review of General Psychology, 5, 323–370. Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1979). Prospect theory:
An analysis of decision under risk. Econometrica, 47, 263–291. Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1991). Loss aversion in riskless choice: A reference dependent model. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 106, 1039–1061.
LOST LETTER TECHNIQUE
The lost letter technique is used to measure people's attitudes by dropping stamped letters addressed to var- ious organizations in public areas and then recording
how many of the letters are returned via the mail. It is assumed that people will be more likely to return a let- ter if it is addressed to an organization that they sup- port than if it is addressed to an organization they do not support. For example, a Democrat who finds a lost letter should be more likely to mail it when it is addressed to a Democratic candidate's headquarters than to a Republican candidate's headquarters.
In one of the first studies to use the lost letter tech- nique, Stanley Milgram and his colleagues dropped stamped letters in a variety of public locations. The letters were addressed to one of four recipients:
"Medical Research Associates," "Friends of the Communist Party," "Friends of the Nazi Party," or a private individual. People were less likely to return the letters if they were addressed to the Communist Party (25% returned) or the Nazi Party (25% returned) than if they were addressed to the Medical group (72% returned) or the private individual (71% returned). These results suggest that people were less likely to mail letters to organizations they did not support. To verify that the response rates reflected people's attitudes, Milgram conducted additional studies. In one study, the researchers were able to correctly predict U.S. presidential election results in different election wards using the lost letter technique. Letters addressed to the Committee to (a) Elect (Barry) Goldwater, (b) Defeat Goldwater, (c) Elect (Lyndon) Johnson, and (d) Defeat Johnson were dropped in various elec- tion wards. Election wards that supported Johnson in the election were more likely to return the pro- Johnson and anti-Goldwater letters than the pro- Goldwater/anti-Johnson letters. The opposite results were found in wards that ended up supporting Goldwater in the election. Later researchers have used the lost letter tech- nique to study helping behavior. By varying the char- acteristics of the letters, researchers can identify the factors that increase the chances that people will help by mailing the letter. Some of these studies have used post cards and e-mails instead of sealed letters. This modification has allowed researchers to determine the impact of the type of message on helping behavior. The lost letter technique allows researchers to determine people's attitudes or the factors that influ- ence helping behavior without directly asking them (known as an unobtrusive measure). Because partici- pants are unaware that they are participating in a
study, they will not alter their behavior to "look good" for the experimenter.
Pamela L. Bacon
See also Altruism; Attitudes; Helping Behavior; Research Methods
Milgram, S., Mann, L., & Harter, S. (1965). The lost-letter technique: A tool of social research. Public Opinion Quarterly, 29, 437–438. Vaes, J., Paladino, M. P., & Leyens, J. P. (2002). The lost e-mail: Prosocial reactions induced by uniquely human emotions. British Journal of Social Psychology, 41, 521–534.
Love is often thought of as an intense and positive emotion that can be experienced for a variety of close others, including a romantic partner or spouse, close friends, children, parents, and other relatives. For more than three decades, social psychologists and other social scientists have been studying love. The type of love that has been most frequently measured and stud- ied is the love experienced for a romantic partner. However, when social scientists began measuring love, they realized that there were many different types or subtypes, even in regard to a romantic partner.
An initial distinction was made between liking and love. One of the first psychologists to study love, Zick Rubin, discovered that people could distinguish between atti- tude statements that measured liking (items that referred to respect, positive evaluation, and perceptions of similarity) and attitude statements that measured love (items that referred to dependency, caring, and exclusiveness). His liking and love scales have been used in several research studies that have generated a number of interesting findings including (1) liking and loving are only modestly associated; (2) those who have higher scores on the love scale spend more time eye-gazing with their partner; and (3) higher scores on love are predictive of staying together over time.
Social psychologists next distinguished between various types of love. The first distinction was between passionate love and companionate love. Passionate love is intense, exciting, and has the potential for both ecstasy (when things are going well) and despair (when things are not going well). Companionate love, however, is less intense and is referred to as affection that develops between two people whose lives are intertwined. Research suggests that in most dating and newly married relationships, both types of love exist. Passionate love tends to develop first, although it is also likely to dissipate first over time. Companionate love may take longer to develop but is likely to remain stable and not erode with the passage of time. Passionate love, as the more intense type of love, may sometimes increase because of misattribution of arousal. A person can become aroused because of an extraneous source such as consumption of caffeine or a frightful experience and then mistakenly attribute the arousal to passionate love for another, especially if the other is physically attractive. Although passionate love declines over years of marriage, research has revealed that if couples engage in exciting and novel activities together, the passion can be rekindled. In a more recent typology, six types or styles of loving have been identified. These are eros (intense, passionate love), ludus (game-playing love), storge (friendship love), pragma (practical love), mania (obsessive, dependent love) and agape (selfless love). These love styles may be considered to be attitudes or orientations toward a particular person (e.g., a roman- tic partner) but also may be considered to be stable orientations toward relationships. For example, some people may be thought of as erotic lovers, likely to experience this particular style of love regardless of the partner. However, people's lovestyle experiences also may change as a function of the partner's style of loving and how he or she behaves toward the other partner. The two types of love that are experienced to the greatest degree, especially among young adults, are eros and storge. In fact, most romantic relation- ships may have a combination of these two types of love. People experience a low level of ludus, which is good because this type of love does not lead to healthy and long-lasting relationships. Consistent gender dif- ferences have been found in the experience of love styles. Ludus is experienced to a greater degree by men than by women, and storge and pragma are expe- rienced to a greater degree by women.
Love also has been described as a triangle, having three primary components: intimacy, passion, and com- mitment (pictorially presented as a triangle). Each com- ponent (triangle side) can range from low to high so that a number of different triangle shapes and sizes are possible. Intimacy refers to warmth, understanding, caring, support, and connection. Passion is character- ized by physical attraction and arousal. Commitment refers to the decision to stay in the relationship and maintain it. The triangular model of love yields eight different love types ranging from nonlove (no intimacy, no passion, and no commitment) to consummate love (high on all three components). Romantic love, often experienced in young college romances, includes inti- macy and passion but rarely includes long-term com- mitment. An empty-shell marriage has commitment, but may no longer have passion or intimacy. Researchers have identified many other types of loving, including unrequited love (in which one loves another but isn't loved back), limerence (an intense dependent type of love), lust, and friendship love. Although most social scientific research has focused on love for one specific person, typically a romantic partner, love can also be experienced for pets, God, strangers, and all of humanity. Compassionate love, for example, is the type of love that focuses on selfless caring for others, especially those who are in need or distressed. It's similar to empathy but more endur- ing. Some nonprofit organizations, such as the Fetzer Institute located in Kalamazoo, Michigan, have recently become interested in promoting scientific study on compassionate love. The hope is that the more that can be learned about this type of love, including love as expressed for all of humanity, the more likely researchers can identify ways to increase it.
Attitudes About Love
Social scientists also have been interested in examin- ing people's attitudes about love. How important do people believe love is for entering and maintaining marriage (i.e., do love and marriage go together?) Do people believe that love is necessary to have premari- tal sex? What are people's romantic attitudes about love? For example, do they believe in love at first sight and that love conquers all? These beliefs are important to study for many reasons, including that the attitudes and beliefs people have will affect their behaviors. Survey studies indicate that most young adults believe
that one should not enter marriage without love. The disappearance of love from marriage over time is thought to be a sufficient reason for a divorce by most people. Although some young adults indicate that they believe that sex is okay in a casual relationship and even in a "hook-up," most young adults and especially women and female adolescents believe that love and affection are necessary for premarital sexual activity. Finally, young adults have many romantic beliefs about love, including that if you love someone, other obstacles can be overcome and a love partner and rela- tionship can be perfect. These beliefs have sometimes been referred to as positive illusions and have been found to be good for relationships because they con- tribute to people engaging in actions that lead to pos- itive events in the relationship.
Many people can remember the first time they had an upsurge of affection for another and may have labeled this turning point in the relationship "falling in love." Researchers have identified the factors that lead to ini- tial attraction as well as falling in love. People report that they fall in love because of desirable characteris- tics of the other (e.g., kindness, physical attractiveness) and because the other expresses attraction toward them, such as through eye contact. Falling in love can lead to an increased feeling of self-worth, at least in the initial stage and especially if it's reciprocated.
Determinants of Love
Researchers also have tried to identify the factors that make love grow over time or at least not decrease. The most common way of studying determinants of love is to survey individuals about their relationship and have them complete a scale to measure how much they love their partners, and then also have them complete mea- sures on several factors that are predicted to be associ- ated with love. A design that follows the relationships over time is more useful than data at only one point in time for determining causal directions. Research has indicated that feelings of love are associated with fac- tors such as self-disclosure, equity (fair exchange of resources), frequent and satisfying sex, and positive beliefs about the relationship. Research done by Diane Felmlee and Susan Sprecher also indicates that love increases when parents and friends support the
relationship. Each of these factors that have been identified as determinants of love, however, also can be consequences of love. That is, when people feel more love, their self-disclosure, sex, fair exchange, and attempts to seek support from family and friends for the relationship may increase.
Love is important to relationships, to individuals, and to society. Relationships that are loving are more likely to be satisfying and last over time. Individuals who experience love and support by others and also feel love for others are more likely to have high levels of mental and physical health. Society also benefits from people forming loving connections with each other. Love leads to reproduction (and replacement of members in a society), familial relationships for the raising of children to adulthood, and humanitarian efforts toward others. Social psychological investiga- tion has helped significantly to expand the knowledge regarding the multidimensional nature of this impor- tant concept of love, as well as the attitudes associated with it. The scientific community and society has much to gain from the continued investigation of this pivotal and central human emotion.
Susan Sprecher
Diane Felmlee
See also Companionate Love; Emotion; Intimacy; Positive Illusions; Romantic Love; Triangular Theory of Love
Felmlee, D., & Sprecher, S. (2006). Love. In J. E. Stets & J. H. Turner (Eds.), Handbook of sociology of emotions (pp. 389–409). New York: Springer. Hatfield, E., & Sprecher, S. (1986). Measuring passionate love in intimate relationships. Journal of Adolescence, 9, 383–410. Hendrick, S. S., & Hendrick, C. (1992). Romantic love. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Sprecher, S., & Toro-Morn, M. (2002). A study of men and women from different sides of earth to determine if men are from Mars and women are from Venus in their beliefs about love and romantic relationships. Sex Roles, 46, 131–147.
540———Lowballing
LOWBALLING
Lowballing is a strategy to increase compliance. In lowballing, the person making a request gets another person (i.e., the target of compliance) to make a com- mitment to a particular course of action. After making that commitment, the requester reveals hidden costs associated with the requested course of action. The target of compliance is then more likely to follow through with the request (i.e., to comply) than if the hidden costs had been revealed at the time of the initial request.
Car salespeople have been observed using the lowball strategy to increase the likelihood that the customer will purchase a car. In this situation, the salesperson negoti- ates with the customer to arrive at a sales price that the customer feels is a good deal. After the customer com- mits to that price (e.g., via oral agreement, signing paperwork, putting money down), the salesperson takes the agreement to the manager for approval. Upon returning, the salesperson indicates that the manager will only approve a purchase price of $500 more than the previously agreed-upon price. Because the cus- tomer initially made a commitment to purchase the car, he or she is likely to follow through on the purchase, even though it is no longer that good of a deal. In this scenario, the initial price was a lowball offer, which the salesperson never intended to honor. Lowballing also occurs in nonsales situations. For example, a professor asks students to help move boxes of books from the office building to the library. After the students agree, the professor reveals that the students must arrive on campus at 7:30 A.M. to help. Because the students have already agreed to help the
professor, they are more likely to follow through than if they had initially been asked to help early in the morning.
The Importance of Commitment
The lowballing effect depends on the target of com- pliance making a public commitment to the initial request. For several reasons, it is difficult for the tar- get of compliance to back out of the commitment. First, the target of the lowball feels a commitment to the person who made the request (e.g., the customer "made a deal" with the salesperson). Second, the target feels a commitment to the course of action involved (e.g., the customer made a commitment to buy a car). And finally, once the target has made the commitment, he or she becomes excited about the prospect of the course of action involved (e.g., while the salesperson "discusses the offer with the man- ager," the customer envisions driving home in the new car). Given these forms of commitment, the customer is likely to follow through with the behavior, even though it is more costly than the original commitment (e.g., the customer buys the car even though the actual purchase price is higher than the initial agreement). Research suggests that the lowballing technique is robust, in that it remains effective even when the tar- gets of compliance are aware of the strategy and its effectiveness.
Kathryn A. Morris
See also Compliance; Foot-in-the-Door Technique; Influence
Burger, J. M., & Cornelius, T. (2003). Raising the price of agreement: Public commitment and the lowball compliance procedure. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 33, 923–934.
Marital satisfaction is a mental state that reflects the perceived benefits and costs of marriage to a particular person. The more costs a marriage partner inflicts on a person, the less satisfied one generally is with the mar- riage and with the marriage partner. Similarly, the greater the perceived benefits are, the more satisfied one is with the marriage and with the marriage partner.
Components and Mechanisms
CCooggnniittiioonn
In perceiving whether a spouse's behavior is costly or beneficial, cognitions, or thoughts about the behav- ior, are important. If one's spouse performs a negative (costly) behavior, this may be attributed either to characteristics of the spouse (for example, he or she is lazy), or instead to circumstances surrounding the spouse's behavior (for example, it was an especially taxing day at work, and he or she doesn't feel like making dinner). In the case of marital satisfaction, attributing costly behavior to characteristics of one's spouse, rather than to circumstances surrounding his or her behavior, is associated with decreased marital satisfaction, as well as marital deterioration. These mal- adaptive attributions occur more often with negative behaviors in marital problem-solving discussions, and these attributions do not appear to be a result of either partner being depressed, having a neurotic personal- ity, or tending toward physical aggression. The way
people interpret behavior appears to be related to how satisfied they are with their marriage. Intimately related to an individual's thoughts about behaviors are the individual's feelings about behav- iors, or affect. Research on affect and marital satisfac- tion is not conclusive yet; some studies have shown that negative affect is related to decreased marital sat- isfaction, whereas others have shown it has no effect or even increases it. Future research needs to clarify more specifically how negative affect is related to marital satisfaction.
PPhhyyssiioollooggyy
There is a well-established relationship between being married and maintaining physical well-being. This, in the most immediate sense, is established by the physiological functioning of the two married indi- viduals. Recent research has indicated that married couples who are more satisfied with their relationship also exhibit greater synchrony among their physiolog- ical systems compared with those married couples who are less satisfied. That is, maritally satisfied couples are more likely to maintain synchrony among each partner's electrodermal (or electrical resistance of the skin) and heart rate systems, which may be a mechanism by which married couples maintain greater physical well-being than unmarried individuals.
IInntteerraaccttiioonn PPaatttteerrnnss
Patterns of interaction between spouses can affect how satisfied they are with their marriage. The pattern most often related to marital dissatisfaction is one of demand/withdrawal. In this pattern, one partner (often
542———Marital Satisfaction
the wife) criticizes or nags the other about change, while the other partner (usually the husband) evades the confrontation and discussion. It operates such that initial criticism leads to disengagement, which leads to further confrontation and even further disengagement. This pattern has clear implications for marital satisfac- tion, with both parties developing dissatisfaction.
SSoocciiaall SSuuppppoorrtt
Another component of satisfaction within a mar- riage is the degree of social support for each of the partners and for the relationship. Support processes are reliably associated with good marital functioning, as well as with healthful outcomes within families. A marriage partner who provides good social support for his or her spouse contributes to the spouse's marital satisfaction.
VViioolleennccee
Physical violence also is closely linked with mari- tal satisfaction. Individuals involved in physically abusive relationships are more likely to be dissatisfied with their marriage than are individuals not involved in abusive relationships. Escalation to physical vio- lence can result from many factors, one of which is alcohol use. And somewhat surprisingly, some form of physical aggression is present in 57% of newlywed marriages, indicating that the relationship between violence and marital satisfaction may not be as straightforward as is often presumed.
Contextual Factors
Many factors enter into assessments of marital satis- faction: a spouse's personality, his or her perfor- mance of mate-guarding behaviors, his or her likelihood of infidelity, the desirability of each part- ner, the presence of children, and others. If one part- ner perceives that the other is inflicting costs (or being troublesome) in these domains, he or she may move to address them through discussions with the partner, or by seeking a new or additional partner who may better suit the person.
SSppoouussaall PPeerrssoonnaalliittyy CChhaarraacctteerriissttiiccss
How satisfied a person is with his or her mar- riage seems to be related to, in part, the personality characteristics of his or her spouse. Personality is often gauged by five dimensions, including Extraversion
(surgency, dominance, extraversion vs. submissiveness, introversion), Agreeableness (warm, trusting vs. cold, suspicious), Conscientiousness (reliable, well orga- nized vs. undependable, disorganized), Neuroticism (emotional stability, secure, even-tempered vs. nervous, temperamental) and Openness to Experience (intel- lect, perceptive, curious vs. imperceptive). Marital dissatisfaction is most often related to a spouse's emo- tional instability, but dissatisfaction is also related to having a partner who is low in Conscientiousness, low in Agreeableness, and low in Openness/intellect. People married to those with these personality charac- teristics often complain that their spouses are neglect- ful, dependent, possessive, condescending, jealous, unfaithful, unreliable, emotionally constricted, self- centered, sexualizing of others, and abusive of alco- hol. Thus, the personality characteristics of each spouse contribute greatly to the relationship, culminating in satisfying marriage or its ending in divorce.
SSppoouussaall MMaattee GGuuaarrddiinngg
Even after finding a suitable partner and forming a lasting relationship, challenges associated with main- taining that relationship ensue. Men and women often attempt to prevent another person from encroaching on their marriage by performing mate-guarding behav- iors. Some of these behaviors can actually inflict costs on the spouse and, consequently, are related to less- ened marital satisfaction. These mate-guarding behav- iors include monopolizing the partner's time (for example, she spent all of her free time with him so he could not meet other women), threatening or punishing infidelity (for example, he hit her when he caught her flirting with someone else), and being emotionally manipulative (for example, she threatened to harm herself if he ever left). Marriages in which one or both partners frequently perform these costly guarding behaviors are more often dissatisfied marriages.
SSppoouussaall SSuusscceeppttiibbiilliittyy ttoo IInnffiiddeelliittyy
Being unfaithful can unmistakably cause problems in marriages. Discovered infidelities raise issues of honesty, trust between the partners, commitment, and, ultimately, love. Because a spouse's infidelity has the potential to inflict these emotional costs, marital satis- faction appears to be negatively related to the likeli- hood that a spouse will be unfaithful. That is, the more likely one's partner is to be unfaithful, the less satisfied one is with his or her marriage and marriage partner.
Marital Satisfaction———543
MMaattee VVaalluuee
Mate value can be thought of as the desirability of a partner, a composite of a variety of characteris- tics including physical attractiveness, intelligence, and personality. Marriages in which there is a discrep- ancy between the partners in mate value are marriages in which both partners are more likely to be unfaith- ful, signaling marital dissatisfaction. When a husband, for example, is perceived as having a higher mate value than his wife, he, as well as she (perhaps for retaliatory reasons), is more likely to be unfaithful to their marriage. The lower marital satisfaction associ- ated with this contextual marital difficulty, of differing mate values between the partners, appears as an indi- cator to the higher mate value individual that he or she might seek a better-matched partner elsewhere.
CChhiillddrreenn
The introduction of a child drastically changes the marital context. Marital satisfaction is influenced by, and has influences on, children. The presence of children in a marriage has the paradoxical effect of increasing the stability of the marriage (when the children are young, at least), while decreasing mari- tal satisfaction. That is, parenthood makes a marriage less happy but more likely to last. In addition, marital strife, an indicator of dissatisfaction, has been shown to factor into the well-functioning differences between children who come from divorced homes and children who do not.
AAddddiittiioonnaall FFaaccttoorrss
In addition, family background factors, such as the relationship satisfaction of one's parents' marriage, are related to marital satisfaction in an individual's current marriage. Perhaps surprisingly, parental marital satisfac- tion seems to be more closely related to one's own pre- sent marital satisfaction than is one's parents' divorce. Adult attachment styles also are related to marital satisfaction, in that securely attached adults are more often satisfied in their marriage than are those indi- viduals who are avoidant or anxiously ambivalently attached. Some circumstances, like traumatic events (for example, hurricanes, or testicular cancer), appear to actually strengthen marital satisfaction. Stressors in economic or work-related realms often contribute to decreased marital satisfaction, however. For example, displaying negative affect in marital relationships has
been shown to be more frequent among blue-collar, rather than white-collar, employees. Marital satisfaction, in addition to verbal aggression and conflict frequency, appears also to be related to the performance of joint religious activities (like pray- ing together) and to perceptions of the sacredness of their relationship. And although not a direct measure of marital satisfaction, but replete with implications, the presence of available alternative partners in one's envi- ronment is related to a greater likelihood of divorce.
Marital Satisfaction Over Time
One component of marital satisfaction is an under- standing of the factors that influence it presently, a sort of snapshot of it, but it's also important to under- stand how these factors play a role in its development over time. Marital satisfaction was once believed to follow a U-shaped trajectory over time, such that couples began their marriages satisfied, this satisfaction somewhat waned over the years, but resurfaced to newlywed lev- els after many years together. This was found to be the case in studies with cross-sectional data, where marital satisfaction was assessed once, drawn from partici- pants with a variety of ages, but is now actually better understood by following the marital satisfaction trajec- tory of particular couples over the years. It now seems that, on average, marital satisfaction drops markedly over the first 10 years, and continues to gradually decrease over the subsequent decades. There are individual differences in the path that marital satis- faction follows over time, however, as not all marital satisfaction decreases in a linear way (a slow, steady decrease), but may include more dramatic decreases at times, or may even increase. One study found a minor- ity of couples in their sample reported increasing levels of marital satisfaction over time. To date, the many contextual variables mentioned earlier, like the presence of children, mate value dis- crepancies, and likelihood of infidelity, in conjunc- tion with particular personality characteristics of the marriage partners, most notably neuroticism and emotional stability, have been identified as contribu- tors to the general decrease in marital satisfaction over time.
Measuring Marital Satisfaction
Assessing marital satisfaction in research is often done through self-report surveys, in which participants
544———Masculinity/Femininity
respond to a variety of questions assessing their satis- faction with different facets of their marriage. The con- cept of marital satisfaction is not necessarily gauged by assessing a lack of dissatisfaction in the relation- ship; factors that lead to marital distress are not neces- sarily the inverse of factors that promote satisfying relationships. Factors that promote healthy relation- ships and are present in satisfying, long-term marriages are important to consider, as well. Thus, thorough measures of marital satisfaction assess qualities that contribute negatively, as well as uniquely positively, to the marriage.
Emily A. Stone Todd K. Shackelford
See also Big Five Personality Traits; Close Relationships; Happiness; Love; Positive Illusions
Bradbury, T. N., Fincham, F. D., & Beach, S. R. H. (2000). Research on the nature and determinants of marital satisfaction: A decade in review. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 62, 964–980. Buss, D. M. (2003). The evolution of desire (Rev. ed.). New York: Basic Books. Buss, D. M., & Shackelford, T. K. (1997). Susceptibility to infidelity in the first year of marriage. Journal of Research in Personality, 31, 193–221. Karney, B. R., & Bradbury, T. N. (1997). Neuroticism, marital interaction, and the trajectory of marital satisfaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72, 1075–1092. Shackelford, T. K., & Buss, D. M. (2000). Marital satisfaction and spousal cost-infliction. Personality and Individual Differences, 28, 917–928.
MARKET PRICING
See RELATIONAL MODELS THEORY
MASCULINITY/FEMININITY
The terms masculinity and femininity refer to traits or characteristics typically associated with being male or female, respectively. Traditionally, masculinity and femininity have been conceptualized as opposite ends of a single dimension, with masculinity at one extreme
and femininity at the other. By this definition, high masculinity implies the absence of femininity, and vice versa. In other words, people can be classified as either masculine or feminine. Contemporary definitions propose that masculinity and femininity are separate dimensions, allowing for the possibility that individ- uals may simultaneously possess both masculine and feminine attributes.
The Single-Factor Approach
The Attitude Interest Analysis Survey (AIAS) was the first attempt to measure masculinity versus femininity. To develop the test, hundreds of scale items—including measures of attitudes, emotions, personality traits, and occupational preferences—were given to American junior high and high school students in the 1930s. Only items that elicited different responses from girls and boys were included in the final version of the mea- sure. Items that the typical girl endorsed—such as ignorance, desire for a small income, and a fondness for washing dishes—received femininity points. Items that the typical boy endorsed—such as intelligence, desire for a large income, and dislike of tall women— received masculinity points. Because these items clearly reflect gender stereotypes and role expectations prevalent at the time the scale was developed, responses to these items may simply reflect the desire to be a "normal" man or woman. It is not surprising then that the AIAS was less reliable than other stan- dard measures of personality and was not related to other criteria of masculinity and femininity (e.g., teachers' ratings of students' masculinity and feminin- ity). Because of these methodological issues and a lack of theoretical basis, the AIAS is no longer used today.
Multifactorial Approaches
Contemporary scales of masculinity/femininity have abandoned the single-factor approach in favor of mul- tifactorial models. In the 1970s, the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) introduced the concept of androgyny by allowing for combinations of two independent dimensions of masculinity and femininity. Importantly, the items on the BSRI were not developed using dif- ferences in the responses typical of males and females, as was the AIAS. Instead, the BSRI was developed by asking male and female respondents to indicate how desirable it was for an American man or woman to possess various traits. The final version of the scale is composed of 20 femininity items, 20 masculinity
Matching Hypothesis———545
items, and 20 neutral items. Respondents indicate how much each adjective is self-descriptive. Based on these responses, people may be classified as feminine (high femininity, low masculinity), masculine (low feminin- ity, high masculinity), androgynous (high femininity, high masculinity), or undifferentiated (low femininity, low masculinity). The Personal Attributes Questionnaire (PAQ), another measure of masculinity/femininity developed in the 1970s, also assumes that dimensions of mas- culinity and femininity are independent dimensions. Scale items for this measure were developed in ways similar to the development of the BSRI. The scale consists of 16 socially desirable items designed to measure instrumental traits (e.g., competitive), often associated with males, and expressive traits (e.g., gen- tle), often associated with females. Although the BSRI and PAQ are similar in content, they differ in their the- oretical implications. Currently, the BSRI is used within the framework of gender schema theory as a measure of men and women's degree of sex-typing. Sex-typed individuals (i.e., men classified as masculine or women classified as feminine) are said to be gender-schematic—or to use gender as a way to organize information in their world. Strong gender schemas develop through strong identification with gender roles, in turn leading to attitudes and behaviors consistent with gender role expectations. Thus, masculinity and femininity scores on the BSRI reflect a tendency to conceptualize the world in terms of male and female. In contrast, the creators of the PAQ have rejected the notion that there is one underlying factor of mas- culinity and one factor of femininity. Instead, multiple gender-related phenomena, such as physical attrib- utes, occupational preferences, and personality traits, contribute to multiple factors that contribute to gender identity—or one's own sense of maleness and female- ness. From this perspective then, PAQ and BSRI scores do not represent the global concepts of masculinity/femininity or gender schemas. Rather, they are simply measures of instrumental and expres- sive traits, one of many factors contributing to gender identity. Thus, scores should only be related to gen- der-related behaviors to the extent they are influenced by instrumentality and expressiveness.
Correlates of Masculinity/Femininity
In support of gender schema theory, initial studies demonstrated that BSRI scores predicted gender-related
behaviors such as nurturance, agency, and expressive- ness. For example, in one study, students who were categorized as feminine or androgynous displayed more nurturing behaviors while interacting with a baby compared with masculine or undifferentiated students. However, the creators of the PAQ argue that BSRI scores are only predictive of instrumental and expres- sive behaviors. Empirical evidence supports this claim. Some studies have found little or no relationship between the BSRI and typical measures of gender attitudes and behaviors. Failure to predict related gender constructs may be indicative of psychometric flaws or problems with the underlying theory. Measuring masculinity/femininity in a theoreti- cally meaningful way continues to be problematic. Currently, the multifactor gender identity perspective of masculinity and femininity has received stronger empirical support than other models. Despite theoret- ical criticisms, both the BSRI and PAQ remain fre- quently used measures in gender research.
Ann E. Hoover Stephanie A. Goodwin
See also Gender Differences; Stereotypes and Stereotyping
Bem, S. L. (1974). The measurement of psychological androgyny. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 42, 155–162. Lippa, R. A. (2005). Gender, nature, and nurture. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Spence, J. T., & Helmreich, R. L. (1980). Masculine instrumentality and feminine expressiveness: Their relationship with sex role attitudes and behaviors. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 5, 147–163.
MATCHING HYPOTHESIS
The matching hypothesis refers to the proposition that people are attracted to and form relationships with individuals who resemble them on a variety of attrib- utes, including demographic characteristics (e.g., age, ethnicity, and education level), personality traits, attitudes and values, and even physical attributes (e.g., attractiveness).
546———Meaning Maintenance Model
Background and Importance
Theorists interested in relationship development believe that similarity plays a key role in the process by which people select their friends and romantic partners. During the initial phase of relationship for- mation, when two people have not yet become good friends or committed partners, they assess the extent to which they resemble one another in demographic background, values and interests, personality, and other characteristics. The perception of similarity pro- motes feelings of mutual rapport and positive senti- ment between the two, as well as the expectation that further interaction will be rewarding. These feelings, in turn, increase the likelihood that their relationship will continue to develop.
There is ample evidence in support of the matching hypothesis in the realm of interpersonal attraction and friendship formation. Not only do people overwhelm- ingly prefer to interact with similar others, but a person's friends and associates are more likely to resemble that person on virtually every dimension examined, both positive and negative. The evidence is mixed in the realm of romantic attraction and mate selection. There is definitely a tendency for men and women to marry spouses who resemble them. Researchers have found extensive similarity between marital partners on characteristics such as age, race, ethnicity, education level, socio- economic status, religion, and physical attractive- ness as well as on a host of personality traits and cognitive abilities. This well-documented tendency for similar individuals to marry is commonly referred to as homogamy or assortment. The fact that people tend to end up with romantic partners who resemble them, however, does not nec- essarily mean that they prefer similar over dissimilar mates. There is evidence, particularly with respect to the characteristic of physical attractiveness, that both men and women actually prefer the most attractive partner possible. However, although people might ide- ally want a partner with highly desirable features, they might not possess enough desirable attributes them- selves to be able to attract that individual. Because people seek the best possible mate but are constrained by their own assets, the process of romantic partner selection thus inevitably results in the pairing of indi- viduals with similar characteristics.
Nonetheless, sufficient evidence supports the match- ing hypothesis to negate the old adage that "opposites attract." They typically do not.
Pamela C. Regan
See also Attraction; Close Relationships; Equity Theory; Social Exchange Theory
Berscheid, E., & Reis, H. T. (1998). Attraction and close relationships. In D. T. Gilbert, S. T. Fiske, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), The handbook of social psychology (4th ed., pp. 193–281). New York: McGraw-Hill. Kalick, S. M., & Hamilton, T. E. (1996). The matching hypothesis re-examined. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 673–682. Murstein, B. I. (1980). Mate selection in the 1970s. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 42, 777–792.
MEANING MAINTENANCE MODEL
People expect that certain experiences will be associ-
ated with one another. For example, if a person goes out to dinner, he or she expects the waiter to bring what he or she ordered. If a person sees a crow, he or she expects it to be black. People expect that good people will be rewarded in life, bad people will be punished, and that their friends will be kind to them. Sometimes, however, these expectations are violated by unusual experiences. Sometimes the waiter brings the wrong breakfast, and sometimes friends are cruel. Sometimes tragedies befall nice people, villains pros- per, or an albino crow lands on a neighbor's roof. The meaning maintenance model (MMM) pro- poses that whenever these expected associations are violated by unexpected experiences, it goes against people's shared desire to maintain meaning, or to feel that their experiences generally make sense. Often, when people's expectations are violated, they can
I guess that
revise them ("A white crow? Hmm
some crows can be white as well as black"), or they can reinterpret the experience so that it no longer appears to violate their expectations ("A white crow? I guess I didn't see it right. It must have been a dove").
Meaning Maintenance Model———547
Alternatively, violated expectations can prompt people to seek out or remind themselves of other
existing expected associations, it was said to be mean- ingless; such experiences could only be considered
experiences that still do make sense to them ("Weird.
meaningful once people have found a way of connect-
A white crow? Hmm
maybe I'll watch that movie
ing them to their existing expected associations.
the one I've seen a dozen times before").
According to the existentialists, feelings of meaning-
proposes that when people's expected associa-
lessness could be evoked by any experience that vio-
tions are violated, they often reaffirm other expected
associations that haven't been violated, even if the expected associations being reaffirmed don't have much to do with the expected associations that were
lated one's expected associations, be it a simple error in judgment, an unexpected observation, a surreal image, feeling alienated from lifelong friends, or thoughts of one's own mortality, as death was thought
violated to begin with. MMM calls this process fluid
represent one's final disconnection from the world
compensation and proposes that expected associations
around him or her.
are substitutable with one another when they attempt to restore a feeling that their experiences generally
When experimental psychologists began to talk about meaning in the early 20th century, they used
make sense.
novel term that was introduced by the English
What Is Meaning?
Meaning comprises the expected associations that
connect people's experiences to one another—any experience, and any way that experiences can be con- nected. Meaning is what connects people's experi-
ences of the people, places, objects, and ideas all
around them (e.g., hammers to nails, cold to snow,
fathers to sons, or dawn to the rising sun). Meaning is
what connects experiences of one's own self (e.g., one's thoughts, behaviors, desires, attributes, abilities, roles, and past incarnations), and meaning is what connects one to the outside world (e.g., purpose, value, belonging). Despite the many ways that people can connect their experiences, meaning always mani- fests as expected associations that allow them to feel that these experiences make sense.
Why Do People Maintain Meaning?
The idea that people have a general desire to maintain expected associations was suggested by many Western existentialists in the mid-19th and 20th cen- turies, including Søren Kierkegaard, Martin Heidegger, and Albert Camus. These philosophers imagined that all humanity shared a common desire to see their experiences as connected to one another in ways that generally made sense. Science, religion, and philoso- phy were imagined to be different ways of connecting one's experiences of the outside world, connecting elements of one's own self, and ultimately, connecting oneself to the world around him or her. These connec- tions were called meaning, and when people experi- ence something, anything, that isn't connected to their
psychologist Fredric Bartlett. Bartlett called these expected associations schemas. Where the existential- ists once spoke of meaning, psychologists focused their attention on different kinds of schemas, scripts, worldviews, and paradigms, eventually using many different terms to express the same essential concept:
expected associations that connect people's experi- ences to one another in ways that make sense. Psychologists have now spent the better part of a century exploring the specific functions served by different kinds of expected associations. For exam- ple, some unconscious paradigms focus people's
attention, which in turn enables them to memorize and recall their experiences. Other scripts provide people a basis for predicting different events in their environment, and allow them to influence their out- comes. Social schemas help people understand their place in society and how they are expected to behave. Many worldviews help people cope with tragedy and trauma by connecting these events to beliefs about a higher purpose and cultural values. Although many theories explore the many functions of meaning, MMM
is unique in proposing a general desire to maintain
meaning beyond whatever functions it may serve.
How Do People Maintain Meaning?
Different kinds of psychologists have different theo- ries that try to explain how people maintain expected associations. For example, developmental psycholo- gists speak of Jean Piaget's theory of equilibrium, and many social psychologists are influenced by Leon Festinger's cognitive dissonance theory. Like MMM, these theories propose that people strive to connect their experiences to one another through a series of
548———Media Violence and Aggression
expected associations, while acknowledging that, from time to time, people are exposed to experiences that violate these expectations. To date, these and other meaning maintenance accounts propose that people deal with violated expec- tations in one of two ways: revision or reinterpretation. When people have an experience that doesn't make sense, they will either revise their expectations to include the unusual experience (e.g., "A white crow? Some crows are white"; "Death as the end of life? Death is a part of living"), or they may reinterpret the unusual experience such that it no longer appears to violate their expectations (e.g., "I did that boring job for no reward? I must have done it because the job was actually fun and interesting"; "Tragedy befalling virtuous people? It wasn't a tragedy because it made them stronger"). In addition to revision and reinter- pretation, MMM proposes a third way that people deal with violations of expected associations; in the face of meaninglessness, people often reaffirm other, generally unrelated expected associations to restore a general feeling that their experiences make sense. MMM proposes that people maintain expected associations to satisfy their desire to feel that their experiences make sense, beyond any specific function that expected associations may serve. When unusual experiences violate expected associations, this viola- tion compromises the specific function served by those expected associations and challenges people's general desire to have experiences make sense. When people try to restore a general sense of meaningful- ness, expected associations become substitutable for one another; reaffirming one set of expected associa- tions (e.g., social affiliation) may be as good as re- affirming another set of expected associations (e.g., self-concept) when expected associations are violated that serve an entirely different function (e.g., visual schema). The meaning framework being reaffirmed may have no bearing whatsoever on the meaning framework that was originally violated, so it can be said that expected associations are substitutable with one another in this fluid compensation process. There is much evidence in the social psychological literature for substitutable fluid compensation. For example, researchers have shown that if people expe- rience unexpected inconsistencies in their lives, they may reaffirm their adherence to social values that have nothing whatsoever to do with those inconsistencies. Similarly, if people have their self-concept violated by unexpected failure feedback, they may respond by
reaffirming their connection to an established social group that has no bearing on the aspect of self that was violated. Making people uncertain about their visual perceptions may prompt them to more vigor- ously reaffirm unrelated social values, as does making people feel that they are connected to a group of people that they normally see as being quite different from themselves. Another example of substitutable compensatory reaffirmation involves reminding people about their eventual death, which in turn prompts them to reaf- firm other expected associations more vigorously. This reaffirmation can manifest itself as many differ- ent behaviors—seeking greater affiliation with others, showing increasing dislike of people who criticize their current affiliations, or even as seeking patterned associations within seemingly random strings of letters. Although many separate theories attempt to explain these individual behavioral phenomena,
MMM proposes that all of these studies (and many,
many more) demonstrate the same general psycholog- ical impulse: One meaning framework is threatened, and another, unrelated meaning framework undergoes compensatory reaffirmation.
Travis Proulx
See also Cognitive Dissonance Theory; Terror Management Theory
Heine, S., Proulx, T., & Vohs, K. (2006). The Meaning Maintenance Model: On the coherence of social motivation. Personality and Social Psychological Review, 10, 88–111.
MEDIA VIOLENCE AND AGGRESSION
Violent media includes all forms of mass communica-
tion that depict the threat to use force, the act of using force, or the consequences of the use of force against animate beings (including cartoon characters or other
as well as humans). There are many forms of
media,
including TV programs, movies, video games,
comic books, and music. More than five decades of
Media Violence and Aggression———549
scientific data lead to the irrefutable conclusion that exposure to violent media increases aggression. About 300 studies involving more than 50,000 subjects have been conducted on this topic.
Violent Media Effects
Exposure to violent media can have several undesir-
able effects. One effect is that people who consume a lot of violent media become less sympathetic to vic- tims of violence. In one study, people who played violent video games assigned less harsh penalties to criminals than did those who played nonviolent games. People also perceive victims as injured less and display less empathy toward them after exposure
to violent media. One reason why people may become
more tolerant of violence and less sympathetic toward victims is because they become desensitized to it over time. Research has shown that after consuming vio- lent media, people have lower heart rate and blood pressure in response to real depictions of violence. In addition to desensitizing people to the effects of violence, violent media also increase aggressive thoughts. One result is that people who consume a lot of violent media are more likely to attend to hostile information and expect others to behave in a hostile manner. They may also interpret ambiguous situations in the worst possible light, assuming that the behavior of others reflects hostility rather than other, more posi- tive traits such as assertiveness. Some researchers have also found that violent media also increase aggressive feelings. Most importantly, exposure to violent media also makes people act more aggressively toward others.
Violent Video Games
Although most studies have focused on violent televi- sion and movies, the same general pattern of effects
appears to be present after exposure to different forms of media, including violent music, violent comic books, and violent video games. The effects of violent video games on people's attitudes toward victims of violence are of particular concern. Feeling empathy requires taking the perspective of the victim, whereas violent video games encourage players to take the per- spective of the perpetrator. Violent video games should also have a larger effect on aggressive behavior than violent TV programs and films. Watching a violent TV program or film is a passive activity, whereas playing
a violent video game is active. Research has shown
that people learn better when they are actively involved. Viewers of violent shows may or may not identify with violent characters, whereas players of violent video games are forced to identify with violent characters. Any rewards that come from watching vio- lent shows are indirect. The rewards that come from playing violent video games are direct. The player gets points or advances to the next level of the game by killing others. The player also sees impressive visual effects and hears verbal praise (e.g., "Nice shot!" "Impressive!") after behaving aggressively.
Different Types of Violent Media Studies
Experimental studies have shown that exposure to media violence causes people to become more toler- ant of aggressive behavior and to behave more agg- ressively toward others immediately after exposure. Although laboratory experiments involving noise blasts and electric shocks have been criticized for their somewhat artificial nature, field experiments have produced similar results. For example, in one field experiment, delinquent boys who were shown violent films every night for five nights were more likely than were those shown nonviolent films to get into fights with other boys. Similar effects have been observed with nondelinquent children who saw a sin- gle episode of a violent children's television program. Another criticism about experimental studies is that they do not measure actual criminal violence. Although acting aggressively is not always a desirable trait, it is not the same as breaking the law or commit- ting serious acts of violence. But stories of copycat violence tend to make the public most concerned about the effects of violent media. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the students who killed 13 people and wounded 23 in the Columbine massacre, were both avid players of violent video games. Before the mas- sacre, both of them played a specially modified version of the video game Doom. In a videotape released after the massacre, Harris refers to his gun as "Arlene," which is the name of the protagonist's love interest in the Doom novels. This connection suggests that con- suming violent media and aggression are related, but does violent media actually cause criminal violence? It would be difficult, if not impossible, to conduct a safe and ethical laboratory study on the effect of vio- lent media on violent behavior. However, it is probably not so much the immediate effect of media violence on
violent crime that is of concern but, rather, the aggre- gated long-term effects. Children are exposed to about 10,000 violent crimes in the media per year, and each of these has a cumulative effect on their thoughts, feel- ings, and actions. Longitudinal studies have shown that exposure to violent media is related to serious violent and antisocial behavior. For example, the amount of violent media consumed as a child is related to how many fights a person will get into in high school. Similarly, men who watched violent media during childhood were nearly twice as likely to have assaulted their spouse 15 years later. In another longitudinal study, consumption of violent media at age 14 pre- dicted violent crimes committed at age 22.
What Types of Media Are Most Harmful?
All violent media do not have the same effect, and all people are not affected the same way by violent media. For example, how violence is depicted is important. Both realistic violence and violence that goes unpun- ished increase the likelihood of aggression. Also, pair- ing violence with sex seems to have a particularly strong effect on men's aggressive attitudes and behavior toward women.
Who Is Most Affected by Violent Media?
Who watches violent media is also important. A num- ber of personality traits seem to place some viewers at greater risk than others. One key variable is the trait of aggressiveness. People who are characteristically aggressive seem to be more affected by violent media than are people who are not characteristically aggres- sive. However, the relationship between trait aggres- sion and violent media is complex, and these findings only represent trait differences at a single point in time. Exposure to media violence also causes trait aggres- siveness, which in turn increases the likelihood of aggressive behavior. This suggests that the short-term effects of violent media observed in experimental research may become increasingly pronounced within individuals as they are repeatedly exposed to violence, leading to a downward spiral into greater levels of aggression. Importantly, longitudinal studies have also addressed the causal direction of this downward spiral. It could be argued that people who behave aggressively are
more likely to watch violent television. Researchers have found that although exposure to aggressive media
as a child is related to acts of aggression later in life, aggression as a child is unrelated to exposure to vio- lent media as a young adult, effectively ruling out the possibility that a predisposition to watch violent media is causing this effect. Gender norms or sex differences may also play
a role. Some studies have found that boys are more influenced by media violence than girls are, but these effects are inconsistent. Other researchers find little difference between boys and girls. Longitudinal studies may provide some explanation for this inconsistency. Gender differences in aggression have decreased over time, possibly because more aggres- sive female models have appeared on TV and because it has become more socially acceptable for females to behave aggressively. When someone is exposed to violent media is also important. Although all age groups are equally sus- ceptible to the short-term effects of violent media on
aggression, exposure to violent television at a young age is a particularly strong predictor of violent behav- ior in later life. It is not yet clear whether this finding
is simply a result of additional years of exposure to
violent media or a result of exposure to violence dur- ing a critical period of children's social development.
Although many individual differences moderate the impact of violent media on aggressive and even violent behavior, on the whole, consumption of vio- lent media increases aggressive and antisocial behav- ior. The effect of violent media on aggression is not trivial, either. Although the typical effect size for exposure to violent media is small by conventional standards and is thus dismissed by some critics, this small effect translates into significant consequences for society as a whole, which may be a better standard by which to measure the magnitude of the effect. A recent review found that the effect of exposure to vio- lent media is stronger than the effect of secondhand smoke on lung cancer, the effect of asbestos on cancer, and the effect of lead poisoning on mental functioning. Although media violence is not the only factor that increases aggression and violence, it is an important factor.
Brad J. Bushman Jesse J. Chandler
See also Aggression; Empathy; Gender Differences; Individual Differences; Intimate Partner Violence
Anderson, C. A., Berkowitz, L., Donnerstein, E., Huesmann,
R. L., Johnson, J. D., Linz, D., et al. (2003). The
influence of media violence on youth. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 4, 81–110. Anderson, C. A., & Bushman, B. J. (2002). Media violence and societal violence. Science, 295, 2377–2378. Bushman, B. J., & Anderson, C. A. (2001). Media violence and the American public: Scientific facts versus media misinformation. American Psychologist, 56, 477–489. Bushman, B. J., & Anderson, C. A. (2002). Violent video games and hostile expectations: A test of the general aggression model. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 1679–1686.
Huesmann, L. R., Moise-Titus, J., Podolski, C. L., & Eron,
L. D. (2003). Longitudinal relations between children's
exposure to TV violence and their aggressive and violent
behavior in young adulthood: 1977–1992. Developmental Psychology, 39, 201–221.
Most contemporary researchers discuss three ele- ments to the concept of memory: (1) Memory is the place or storage area where social and nonsocial information is held; (2) memory is also the specifics or content of an experience or event, also referred to as the memory trace; and (3) memory is the term used to describe the mental process through which people learn, store, or remember this information. In addition, when discussing memory and memory processes, researchers often refer to the related con- cept of a mental representation. A mental representa- tion is an encoded construction that people can access, store, retrieve, and use in a variety of ways. For exam- ple, each person has a mental representation of his or her mother. The collections of feelings, beliefs, and knowledge you have about your mother constitute your mental representation of her.
Memory is a topic that has enjoyed the attention of academics and thinkers for literally thousands of
years. Almost 2,500 years ago, Plato argued that memory was a wax tablet whereupon one's everyday experiences left their impressions. An important consequence of this characterization, one that was
accepted as truth for some time, is that once a mem- ory is encoded it is set and unchangeable. Although
a memory can be forgotten for some time, it could
eventually be completely and accurately retrieved. Conversely, Aristotle argued that memories were asso- ciations among different stimuli and experiences. This idea was further developed by the likes of John Locke and David Hume in the 1600s and 1700s. An associa- tive network allows for a greater fluidity of memory and implies that memories and mental representations
may change or be forgotten over time. This latter view
more consistent with current psychological thought. One of the most comprehensive early approaches
human memory was published by Hermann Ebbing-
haus in his 1885 book on the subject. Ebbinghaus's work focused on the learning of new information (typ- ically nonsense words), and he developed curves to describe how people learned and subsequently forgot new information. Many of his results have laid the foundations for current thought on learning and memory for new information. Some time later, Sir Frederic Bartlett began focusing on how existing knowledge influenced learning and memory. He proposed that memory was actually a constructive process and that people, in trying to recollect, often reconstructed memories from the fragments that were available. Since these early findings, understanding memory processes has been a focus in a number or areas of psychology including perception, behavior- ism, verbal learning, and neuroscience. Consistent with this broad focus in the psychological literature, memory and memory effects have been a core subject of study in social psychology.
Development of Models of Memory
Within the concept of memory, researchers have made
a distinction between explicit (often referred to as
declarative) and implicit (often referred to as nonde- clarative) memory. Explicit memory can be defined as the conscious or intentional act of trying to remember something (such as your mother's birthday), whereas implicit memory can be thought of as the way in which people's memories and prior experiences (i.e., mental representations) affect the way they think about and process information in their social worlds. An example of this would be how people's attitudes about a topic
552———Memory
(their beliefs or opinions stored in memory) affect how they process incoming information about that topic. For example, your attitude toward your mother influ- ences your definition of what represents a good versus
a bad mother. Importantly, with implicit memories,
people are not necessarily aware that their memories have an influence on them. Explicit memory can be further divided into episodic memory (memory for specific events) and semantic memory (memory for the meaning of things, such as words). In the 1950s, researchers began to carefully delin- eate different models of memory. Two types of mem- ory models that have substantially affected the field of social psychology are the related concepts of associa- tive networks and schemas. The associative network model posits that memories are simply the collected associations between different nodes of concepts, sensations, and perceptions. These nodes are linked by being repeatedly associated with each other. Every time the memory is accessed or activated, the associa- tive link between the nodes is strengthened. The more often this happens, the easier the association (i.e., the memory) is to activate. Associative network models fundamentally propose a bottom-up processing strat- egy whereby larger meanings are constructed from the associations among linked concepts. Conversely, schemas can be defined as more com- prehensive representations in memory that provide a framework for interpreting new information. As such, schemas suggest a top-down processing strategy. New information is incorporated into existing schemas, and this information is understood in relation to it. Whereas the associative network approach suggests that people incorporate new information by creating novel asso- ciations, schema theory suggests people understand new information by relating it to their existing knowl- edge and expectations. Far from being contradictory, these processes work in a complementary fashion, depending on the requirements of the situation.
Memory in the Context of Social Psychology
Although research into memory has been conducted
primarily by cognitive psychologists, it is a core research area within social psychology as well. Imagine that you could not remember the people you met from day
to day. Each time you saw your roommate, friends, or
family members, you would need to get to know them all over again. Clearly, memory is essential to our social interactions.
Consequently, a substantial amount of research in social psychology has explored how associative networks and schemas play a role in everyday social experience. A significant amount of research suggests that people go into situations with certain expecta- tions. These expectations are based on their previous experiences and beliefs (i.e., their mental representa- tion about an event, person, or situation). For exam- ple, researchers have demonstrated that people have a general tendency to recall and recognize attitude- consistent information better than they recall attitude- inconsistent information. Although the strength of the overall effect has been debated, people prefer infor- mation that is consistent with their attitudes. Given certain circumstances, however, memory biases can be eliminated or even reversed. For example, some evidence suggests that under certain conditions, people will actively try to counterargue attitude-inconsistent information they encounter, and this may result in
better recall for the attitude-inconsistent information. Similar findings have been reported in the impres- sion formation literature. That is, when people meet a person for the first time, their expectations about the person (e.g., stereotypes about specific groups and their members) or the situation (e.g., a script or set of beliefs about how an event, such as a romantic encounter, should unfold) can influence how they per- ceive and judge that person. If they expect someone to
be nice, they will remember him or her as being pleas-
ant and friendly. Interestingly, if their expectations are
particularly strong when they encounter schema- incongruent information, that inconsistent information may be remembered better (i.e., they may begin to cre- ate a new associative network or information). Thus, as
with the attitude literature, people tend to demonstrate
a confirmatory bias, but if their expectations are
strong, the inconsistent information may be particu- larly salient and thus may be remembered better. Although there has been debate in the literature about how and when these effects occur, mental representa- tions and memory affect how people interact with their social worlds.
Applications of Memory Research
The social psychological aspects of memory research have been applied to real-world settings in several areas. For example, police and the courts have had a necessary interest in human memory. Much of what happens in the court system relies on people's memo- ries and how their mental representations influence
Mental Accounting———553
information processing. Issues such as interviewing witnesses, eyewitness identification, and jury decision making have all received a great deal of attention in the social psychological literature. Within the area of eyewitness memory, one popular area of research has been the exploration of false memories. A significant amount of empirical research indicates that false memories are relatively easy to create and that these memories can be held with as much confidence and clarity as true memories. This further reinforces the concept of memory as malleable over time and retrieval as a reconstructive process. Outside of the social psychological literature, mem- ory research has been applied to, and conducted in, several areas such as clinical psychology (e.g., explor- ing long- and short-term amnesia; the role of memory in schizophrenia, dementia, and depression), develop- mental psychology (e.g., exploring how memory skills and processes develop in childhood and progress through adolescence, adulthood, and old age), and of course, cognitive psychology (e.g., exploring basic processes in attention, perception, and memory model- ing). Thus, memory and memory research have been and will continue to be major focuses within social psychology and the broader psychological literature.
Steven M. Smith
See also Eyewitness Testimony, Accuracy of; Metacognition; Primacy Effect, Memory
Schacter, D. L. (1996). Searching for memory: The brain, the mind and the past. New York: Basic Books. Smith, E. R. (1998). Mental representation and memory. In D. T. Gilbert, S. T. Fiske, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), The handbook of social psychology (Vol. 1, pp. 391–445). Boston: McGraw-Hill.
MENTAL ACCOUNTING
Mental accounting is a theory that describes how people think about money. This theory suggests that people track and coordinate their financial activities by partitioning money into mental accounts, which are used to make spending decisions. Examples of mental accounts might include an "entertainment
account" or an "education account," each representing money specifically budgeted for that endeavor. Mental accounting represents a shift from tradi- tional economic theory, which suggests that people think about their assets as a single account represent- ing their total state of wealth. According to economic theory, spending decisions are based on a purchase's utility relative to all other potential purchases. Mental accounting instead suggests that spending decisions are based on utility relative only to other purchases in the relevant account.
The concept of mental accounting first emerged with studies about spending behavior related to sunk costs (money spent on a future event that cannot be refunded). Mental accounting research has since expanded to include more in-depth analyses of spend- ing behavior as well as how mental accounts are opened and closed and how income is apportioned to accounts.
The following examples illustrate the findings of mental accounting research.
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One early mental accounting study examined whether people would attend a basketball game in the middle of a blizzard. Those who purchased a ticket in advance choose to go see the game, despite not want- ing to drive in bad weather. In contrast, people plan- ning to purchase a ticket at the game decide to stay home to avoid driving in poor conditions. This dif- ference can be attributed to the observation that for advance ticket holders, the mental account for "bas- ketball game viewing" remains open until the game is attended. If the game is not attended, the account may remain open indefinitely, which can be a source of mental discomfort.
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Research investigating assignment of activities to mental accounts presents scenarios like the following:
Scenario 1: Imagine that you spent $20 on a ticket to go see a concert. When you get to the concert, you pull out
554———Mental Accounting
your wallet and realize that you have lost the ticket you'd bought. If you want to see the concert, you need to buy another $20 ticket. Would you buy the ticket?
Scenario 2: Imagine you go to the concert without a ticket, planning to buy one there. When you pull out your wallet, you realize that you have lost a $20 bill. Tickets to the show cost $20. Would you buy the ticket?
People are less likely to buy a ticket after losing a ticket (Scenario 1) than after losing $20 (Scenario 2). This is inconsistent with traditional economic theory because the scenarios are economically equivalent; in both versions, the choice to skip the concert means having $20 less and the choice to see the concert means having $40 less in overall wealth. Mental accounting better explains the results of this ticket-buying study. In the first scenario, both $20 expenditures are charged to the "entertainment" account, which makes it seem like $40 is being spent on the concert ticket. In the second scenario, the lost $20 is charged to the "general fund" account and only the $20 spent on the ticket is charged to the "enter- tainment" account, which makes it seem like the ticket cost only $20.
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Research on transaction utility (the perception and experience of outcomes) reveals that altering the purchase context causes people to be willing to pay different prices for the same product. In one study, par- ticipants were asked how much money they would spend on a bottle of beer. Half the participants were told they could buy the beer from a nearby resort, and half the participants were told they could buy the beer from a nearby grocery store. People report they are willing to pay $2.65 for a bottle of beer purchased from an expensive resort but only $1.50 for the same bottle of beer when purchased from a grocery store. Economic theory predicts that willingness to pay should not be influenced by factors like the product's source. Mental accounting research reveals that this is not actually the case and that people perceive and experience outcomes differently depending on the context; the same beer is charged to different mental accounts based on the particular circumstances of the purchase.
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Mental accounting has been studied using hypo- thetical scenarios like those described earlier and in the field within diverse populations. One field study investigated mental accounting in taxi drivers, finding that drivers tend to work longer on days when they are making less money and quit earlier on days when they are making lots of money. This study revealed that taxi drivers have a mental account for income that fills each day. Once the account has been filled, the work- day can be considered over. Economic theory predicts that drivers would work longer on high-earning days and quit earlier on slow days in the interest of making the most money possible per hour worked, but this is exactly the opposite of what most drivers do. Drivers seem unwilling to close the income account each day until they receive a fixed amount of money. Another study found that people treat windfalls (unexpected income) differently than earnings from a paycheck. These two sources of income correspond to different mental accounts, and as such, people tend to spend the money differently. Regular earnings are used for predictable expenses and bonuses are used for special luxury purchases. Economic theory, how- ever, predicts that people would treat all income the same regardless of source. As this is not the case, mental accounting provides a better description of how people think about money.
Importance and Implications
Mental accounting helps illustrate that economic the- ory cannot always account for people's behavior. It demonstrates that money is not always treated as representing an overall state of wealth and that psy- chological factors are important to consider in pre- dicting everyday behavior when it comes to earning or spending money.
Joanne Kane
Ethan Pew
See also Behavioral Economics; Gain–Loss Framing; Prospect Theory; Sunk Cost
Thaler, R. H. (1999). Mental accounting matters. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 12, 183–206.
Mental Control———555
MENTAL CONTROL
Mental control refers to the ways in which people control their thoughts and emotions to remain in agreement with their goals. People engage in mental control when they suppress a thought, concentrate on a feeling or sensation, restrain an emotional response, or strive to maintain a mood. Mental control proves difficult for most people, and the study of mental con- trol has implications for the treatment of a wide range of psychological disorders.
History and Background
The scientific study of mental control is relatively new to psychology. Before 1987, the term mental control did not appear in any searches of the psychological lit- erature. The tendency for people to exert control over their thoughts and emotions has been observed cultur- ally for more than a century, however. Perhaps the most famous instance of mental control came from the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy, who described a time in which he instructed his younger brother to sit in a cor- ner and not to think of a white bear. Once challenged to suppress thoughts of a white bear, the younger Tolstoy stood in the corner, confused, and frustrated at having to suppress unwanted thoughts of a white bear. The earliest notion of mental control in the psycho- logical literature came from the writings of Sigmund Freud on the study of repression, which he described as the tendency for people to discard certain thoughts out of consciousness unintentionally. Repression occurs outside of conscious awareness, based on motives of which the person is unaware, and results in the elimination of both a particular memory and the memory that represents the event of repression. Although the Freudian view of repression held a dom- inant place in psychology throughout the early 20th century, research investigating this view has yielded little supportive evidence. In the 1980s, researchers began to consider the impact of conscious efforts to suppress unwanted thoughts. The tendency for people to exert mental control over unwanted thoughts has been widely documented in both normal individuals and those with a wide variety of mental disorders, such as depression, obsessions and compulsions, and
post-traumatic stress. These researchers sought to exam- ine the results of attempted suppression on subsequent cognition, emotion, and behavioral tasks.
Suppression Cycle
Early mental control researchers sought to determine the process by which people exert mental control. Daniel Wegner and colleagues have shown that when people exert mental control, they often do so in a cyclical manner. People asked to suppress the thought of a white bear, for example, begin suppression with a self-distraction phase in which they plan to distract themselves (e.g., "I'll think of something else"). The second phase involves choosing a distracter (e.g., "I'll think about a book"), which results in the intrusive return of the unwanted thought (e.g., "The white bear is there again"). When the unwanted thought has returned, the cycle repeats with a return to the plan to self-distract (e.g., "Now I'll think of something else"). This suppression cycle comprises two main cogni- tive processes—controlled distracter search and auto- matic target search. Controlled distracter search involves a conscious search for thoughts that are not the unwanted thought, which is carried out with the goal of replacing the unwanted thought. Automatic target search entails searching for any sign of the unwanted thought, and this process detects whether the controlled distracter search is successful at replacing the unwanted thought. Research has shown that the availability of potential distracters in the environment influences the distracters that people use while exert- ing mental control. People also rely on their current mental states to serve as distracters during suppression. For example, people suffering from depression have been shown to choose depressing distracters during suppression. Another study showed that people who were induced into a positive or negative mood selected distracters that were related to their mood. These findings suggest that mental control is a process that involves the initial suppression of the unwanted thought or emotion and the search for materials in the environment that are related or unrelated to the suppressed thought or emotion.
Although much research has investigated the process by which people exert mental control in their everyday
556———Mere Exposure Effect
lives, other research has examined what the after- effects of exerting mental control may be. Wegner and colleagues have shown consistently that exerting men- tal control over some particular event or object causes people to show a greater level of obsession or preoc- cupation with the suppressed object than do people who had never suppressed a thought or emotion regarding the particular event or object. This rebound- ing effect was first observed in a study by Wegner and colleagues. Some participants in this study were instructed to suppress the thought of a white bear, whereas other participants completed a similar task but were not asked to suppress the thought of a white
bear. After participants had completed this initial task (in which they either suppressed the thought of a white bear or not), participants were asked to think of
a white bear and to ring a bell every time a white bear
came to mind. Participants who had suppressed the thought of a white bear during the initial task rang the bell more than did participants who had not sup- pressed the thought of a white bear during the initial
task. Thus, the initial act of suppressing the thought of
a white bear led to increased activation of the concept
of a white bear in the mind of these participants. Another consequence of exerting mental control is impaired self-control. Roy Baumeister and col- leagues have demonstrated that participants who sup- pressed a thought on an initial task showed impaired performance on a subsequent self-control task com- pared with participants who had not previously sup- pressed a thought. These findings suggest that mental control is an effortful process that can cause impair- ments in a person's ability to engage in self-control successfully.
C. Nathan DeWall
See also Ego Depletion; Ironic Processes; Motivated Cognition; Self-Control Measures; Self-Regulation
Baumeister, R. F., Bratslavsky, E., Muraven, M., & Tice, D. M. (1998). Ego depletion: Is the active self a limited resource? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 1252–1265. Wegner, D. M., Schneider, D. J., Carter, S., III, & White, L. (1987). Paradoxical effects of thought suppression. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53, 5–13.
MERE EXPOSURE EFFECT
The mere exposure effect describes the phenomenon that simply encountering a stimulus repeatedly some- how makes one like it more. Perhaps the stimulus is a painting on the wall, a melody on a radio, or a face of a person you pass by every day—somehow all these stimuli tend to "grow on you." The mere exposure effect is technically defined as an enhancement of atti- tude toward a novel stimulus as a result of repeated encounters with that stimulus. Interestingly, the mere exposure effect does not require any kind of reward for perceiving the stimulus. All that is required is that the stimulus is merely shown, however briefly or inciden- tally, to the individual. So, for example, briefly glimps- ing a picture or passively listening to a melody is enough for the picture and melody to become preferred over pictures and melodies that one has not seen or heard before. In short, contrary to the adage that famil- iarity breeds contempt, the mere exposure effect sug- gests just the opposite: Becoming familiar with a novel stimulus engenders liking for the stimulus.
The mere exposure effect was first systematically examined by Robert Zajonc, who reported his findings in the influential 1968 article "Attitudinal Effects of Mere Exposure." He presented two kinds of evidence in support of the mere exposure effect. The first kind of evidence was correlational and established a rela- tionship between the frequency of occurrence of cer- tain stimuli and their evaluative meaning. For example, Zajonc reported that words with positive rather than negative meanings have a higher frequency of usage in literature, magazines, and other publications. Thus, the word pretty is used more frequently than ugly (1,195 vs. 178), on is more frequent than off (30,224 vs. 3,644), and first is more frequent than last (5,154 vs. 3,517). Similar findings have also been obtained with numbers, letters, and other apparently neutral stimuli. However, this evidence is correlational, so it is impossible to say if stimulus frequency is the cause of positive meaning or if positive meaning causes the stimulus to be used more frequently. To alleviate concerns associated with the correlational evidence, Zajonc also presented experimental evidence. For
Mere Exposure Effect ———557
example, he performed an experiment and showed that nonsensical words as well as yearbook pictures of faces are rated more favorably after they have been merely exposed to participants. Since then, researchers have experimentally documented the mere exposure effect using a wide variety of stimuli, including simple and complex line drawings and paintings, simple and complex tonal sequences and musical pieces, geomet- ric figures, foods, odors, and photographs of people. Interestingly, the participants in those experiments included college students, amnesic patients, rats, and even newborn chicks, suggesting that the mere expo- sure effect reflects a fairly fundamental aspect of psychological functioning.
Conditions Affecting Strength
During this research, scientists have discovered several conditions that modify the strength of the mere expo- sure effect. Thus, the mere exposure effect is stronger when exposure durations are brief. In fact, the mere exposure effect is sometimes stronger with subliminal rather than supraliminal presentations. The mere expo- sure effect is also stronger when the repetition scheme
is heterogeneous (i.e., with the exposures of a stimulus
being interspersed with the presentations of other stimuli) rather than homogeneous (i.e., with all the exposures being of the same stimulus). Furthermore, the magnitude of the mere exposure effect reaches a peak after 10 to 20 stimulus exposures and thereafter levels off. Finally, stronger mere exposure effects are elicited by more complex stimuli and when the exper- imental situation is set up such that boredom is mini- mized. In fact, boredom and saturation can sometimes
reverse the generally positive effect of mere exposure—
a phenomenon certainly experienced by the reader
when a massively repeated advertising jingle becomes simply annoying. Some reversals of the mere exposure
effect have also been reported with stimuli that are ini- tially negative, though it is unclear whether the increased negativity is due to exposure per se or rather
to the unpleasantness that comes from repeated induc-
tion of negative affect.
Some studies on the mere exposure effect suggest that the phenomenon has wide-ranging personal and social implications. It may influence who people become attracted to; what products, art, and entertainment
they enjoy; and even their everyday moods. Regarding interpersonal attraction, one study found that subjects shown a photograph of the same person each week for four weeks exhibited greater liking for that person
than when compared with subjects shown a photo- graph of a different person each week. In another study, preschoolers who watched Sesame Street episodes that involved children of Japanese, Canadian, and North American Indian heritage were more likely to indicate that they would like to play with such children than were preschoolers who had not seen these episodes. In the domain of advertising, researchers have shown that unobtrusive exposure to cigarette brands enhances participants' brand preference and their pur- chase intentions. Even people's aesthetic inclinations are shaped by mere exposure. For example, adult preferences for impressionistic paintings were found to increase as the frequency of occurrence of the images of the paintings in library books increased. In another study, subjects were incidentally exposed to various pieces of orchestral music at varying frequen- cies. Again, as the number of exposures to a piece of orchestral music increased, then so did the subjects' liking ratings for the music. Apparently, mere repeated exposure may even boost mood states of individuals. In one experiment, subjects were subliminally exposed to either 25 differ- ent Chinese ideographs (single exposure condition) or to 5 Chinese ideographs that were repeated in random sequence (repeated exposure condition). Assessment of subjects' overall mood states indicated that those subjects in the repeated exposure condition exhibited a more positive mood than did those subjects
in the single exposure condition.
Theoretical Interpretations
There are many theoretical interpretations of exactly how mere repeated exposure enhances our liking for the stimulus. One class of explanations seeks the answer in simple biological processes common to many organisms, including mammals and birds. Thus, it has been proposed that organisms respond to a novel stimulus with an initial sense of uncertainty, which feels negative. Repeated exposure can reduce such
uncertainty, and thus engender more positive feelings.
A related proposal suggests that organisms approach
novel stimuli expecting possible negative conse- quences and that the absence of such consequences during repeated exposure is experienced as positive.
558———Mere Ownership Effect
Finally, those biologically inspired proposals empha- size that mere familiarity with a stimulus can serve as a probabilistic cue that a stimulus is relatively safe (after all, the individual survived to see it again). A competing class of explanations seeks the answer in more perceptual and cognitive processes and treats the mere exposure effect as a kind of implicit memory phenomenon. One proposal suggests that repeated exposure gradually strengthens a stimulus memory trace and thus enhances the ease of its later identifica- tion. This ease of perception can elicit positive affect because it allows people to better deal with the stimu- lus in a current situation. The positive affect created by the ease of perception may, of course, generalize to the nature of the stimulus, or participants' own mood, explaining a relatively wide scope of mere exposure effects. Importantly, for this process to occur, partici- pants should not know why the stimulus is easy to process. Otherwise, they are unlikely to attribute the sense of positivity from the ease of perceiving the stimulus to an actual preference for the stimulus. This idea explains why mere exposure effects are stronger when stimuli are presented subliminally and when stimuli are not recognized from the exposure phase. Furthermore, the ease of perception idea explains why the mere exposure effect is more easily obtained for more complex stimuli because their memory traces are more likely to benefit from progressive strengthening by repetition. Finally, the perceptual account of the mere exposure effect fits well with many other studies suggesting that other ways of enhancing the ease of stimulus perception of a single stimulus (e.g., via stim- ulus contrast, duration, clarify, or priming) tend to enhance participants' liking for those stimuli in ways comparable to repetition. The debate, however, over the exact mechanism by which repeated mere exposure exerts its effects is far from resolved and will no doubt be a hot topic in the psychological literature for some time to come.
Troy Chenier
Piotr Winkielman
See also Attitudes; Attraction; Priming; Memory
Bornstein, R. F. (1989). Exposure and affect: Overview and meta-analysis of research 1968–1987. Psychological Bulletin, 106, 265–289. Bornstein, R. F., & D'Agostino, P. R. (1994). The attribution and discounting of perceptual fluency: Preliminary tests
of a perceptual fluency/attributional model of the mere exposure effect. Social Cognition, 12, 103–128. Lee, A. Y. (2001). The mere exposure effect: An uncertainty reduction explanation revisited. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27, 1255–1266. Winkielman, P., Schwarz, N., Fazendeiro, T., & Reber, R. (2003). The hedonic marking of processing fluency:
Implications for evaluative judgment. In J. Musch & K. C. Klauer (Eds.), The psychology of evaluation:
Affective processes in cognition and emotion (pp. 189–217). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Zajonc, R. B. (1968). Attitudinal effects of mere exposure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 9, 1–27.
MERE OWNERSHIP EFFECT
The mere ownership effect refers to an individual's tendency to evaluate an object more favorably merely because he or she owns it. The endowment effect is a related phenomenon that concerns the finding that sellers require more money to sell an object than buy- ers are willing to pay for it. Taken together, these phe- nomena indicate that ownership is a psychologically meaningful variable that can influence the way that one thinks about and evaluates objects in the external world.
The mere ownership effect has been hypothesized to occur because people are motivated to see themselves in a positive light. Thus, the mere ownership effect illustrates the importance of the self in mediating how people interpret the world. Self-concept refers to the beliefs a person holds about the self. Self-esteem refers to how much a per- son likes or dislikes the self. Because people are moti- vated to maintain high self-esteem, people strive to see themselves in a positive light. This tendency toward self-enhancement can take many forms. For example, people tend to underestimate the likelihood of experi- encing a negative event such as an illness or accident. Similarly, individuals overestimate their abilities on skills such as driving a car or behaving in a morally correct way. People also focus selectively on positive, rather than negative, beliefs about themselves. People show indirect self-enhancement by posi- tively evaluating targets associated with the self. For
Mere Ownership Effect———559
example, people evaluate their own groups more pos- itively than others' groups. The basis for association can include significant dimensions such as race or irrelevant dimensions such as a shared birth date.
Explaining Ownership Effects
The mere ownership effect is a form of indirect self- enhancement similar to the bias people show regard- ing their own, rather than others', groups. The concept of ownership creates a psychological association between the owner and the object. To the extent that an owner sees the owned object in a favorable light, he or she can then indirectly come to see the self in a more favorable light, as well. The endowment effect is thought to operate for a different reason than self-enhancement. The endow- ment effect works because of the different way that people think about gains and losses. People tend to be more distressed by losses than they are made happy by gains. For example, people would probably be more irate by a $10-a-week pay cut than they would be made happy by a $10-a-week raise. In other words, the absolute value of their change in emotional state would be larger for a loss than a gain. According to the gain–loss explanation for the endowment effect, selling a possession is perceived as a loss. In contrast, buying is seen as a gain. The seller's reluctance to accept a loss causes him or her to ask for a little extra compensation that potential buyers are unwilling to provide. Both the mere ownership effect and the endowment effect reflect an important conflict that has occurred between psychology and economics. If people behaved in the purely rational fashion that economics assumes, then the endowment effect and the mere ownership effect would not occur. From the perspective of eco- nomics, the object is the same regardless of who owns it. The idea that owners think about the object differ- ently than nonowners do indicates that a full under- standing of economics will have to acknowledge psychological principles.
Evidence for the mere ownership effect has been demonstrated using laboratory-based experiments. In the ownership condition, an individual is provided with ownership of an object, typically justified as a gift for participating. Participants are later asked to rate the owned object as well as other, nonowned
objects. In the nonownership condition, participants rate the objects in the absence of ownership. Generally, the same object is rated as more attractive when it is owned rather than not owned. In research on the endowment effect, a miniature economy is created in which half the participants are each provided ownership of an object and the other half are not. Potential sellers are asked to indicate the lowest price they would accept to sell the object, whereas potential buyers are asked to indicate the highest price they would pay to buy the object. Typi- cally, the average seller's price is higher than the aver- age buyer's price. One possible limitation of these kinds of experi- ments is that giving someone a gift may encourage the recipient to evaluate it in a positive manner to show appreciation rather than because he or she actually sees the item in a more positive light. To address this problem, researchers have asked people to evaluate objects that they already own. They found that people listed a greater number of positive traits associated with their own cars rather than others' cars.
The self is a complex concept that consists of many parts, including achievements, ancestors, descendants, and education. The self also consists of what one owns. The mere ownership effect illustrates there is a relationship between one's possessions and how one sees oneself. Given the existence of the mere ownership effect and the endowment effect, at first glance, a person might wonder how it could be that anything ever sells. In the course of a typical negotiation, people may come to realize that they need to reduce their aspirations for transactions to occur. In addition, ownership effects do not operate for all possessions or even for the same possession at different points in time.
James K. Beggan
See also Gain–Loss Framing; Self; Self-Concept; Self-Enhancement; Self-Esteem
Beggan, J. K. (1992). On the social nature of nonsocial perception: The mere ownership effect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 62, 229–237.
560———Meta-Analysis
Csikszentmihalyi, M., & Rochberg-Halton, E. (1981). The meaning of things: Domestic symbols and the self. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Kahneman, D., Knetsch, J. L., & Thaler, R. H. (1990). Experimental tests of the endowment effect and the Coase theorem. Journal of Political Economy, 98, 1325–1348.
Meta-analysis uses statistical techniques to summa- rize results from different empirical studies on a given topic to learn more about that topic. In other words, meta-analyses bring together the results of many dif- ferent studies, although the number of studies may be as small as two in some specialized contexts. Because these quantitative reviews are analyses of analyses, they are literally meta-analyses. The practice is also known as research synthesis, a term that more com- pletely encompasses the steps involved in conducting such a review. Meta-analysis might be thought of as an empirical history of research on a particular topic, in that it tracks effects that have accumulated across time and attempts to show how different methods that researchers use may make their effects change in size or in direction.
Rationale and Procedures
As in any scientific field, social psychology makes progress by judging the evidence that has accumu- lated. Consequently, literature reviews of studies can be extremely influential, particularly when meta- analysis is used to review them. In the past three decades, the scholarly community has embraced the position that reviewing is itself a scientific method with identifiable steps that should be followed to be most accurate and valid. At the outset, an analyst carefully defines the vari- ables at the center of the phenomenon and considers the history of the research problem and of typical studies in the literature. Usually, the research problem will be defined as a relation between two variables, such as the influence of an independent variable on a dependent variable. For example, a review might consider the extent to which women use a more relationship-oriented leadership style compared with men. Typically, the analyst will also consider what cir- cumstances may change the relation in question. For
example, an analyst might predict that women will lead in a style that is more relationship-oriented than men and that this tendency will be especially present when studies examine leadership roles that are communal in nature (e.g., nurse supervisor, elemen- tary principal). Analysts must next take great care to decide which studies belong in the meta-analysis, the next step in the process, because any conclusions the meta- analysis might reach are limited by the methods of the studies in the sample. As a rule, meta-analyses profit by focusing on the studies that use stronger methods, although which particular methods are "stronger" might vary from area to area. Whereas laboratory- based research (e.g., social perception, persuasion) tends to value internal validity more than external validity, field-based research (e.g., leadership style, political attitudes) tends to reverse these values. Ideally, a meta-analysis will locate every study ever conducted on a subject. Yet, for some topics, the task can be quite daunting because of sheer numbers of studies available. As merely one example, in their 1978 meta-analysis, Robert Rosenthal and Donald B. Rubin reported on 345 studies of the experimenter expectancy effect. It is important to locate as many studies as possible that might be suitable for inclusion using as many techniques as possible (e.g., computer and Internet searches, e-mails to active researchers, consulting reference lists, manual searching of related journals). If there are too many studies to include all, the analyst might randomly sample from the studies or, more commonly, narrow the focus to a meaningful subliterature. Once the sample of studies is in hand, each study is coded for relevant dimensions that might have affected the study outcomes. To permit reliability statistics, two or more coders must do this coding. In some cases, an analyst might ask experts to judge methods used in the studies on particular dimensions (e.g., the extent to which a measure of leadership style is relationship-oriented). In other cases, an ana- lyst might ask people with no training for their views about aspects of the reviewed studies (e.g., the extent to which leadership roles were communal). To be included in a meta-analysis, a study must offer some minimal quantitative information that addresses the relation between the variables (e.g., means and standard deviations for the compared groups, F tests, t tests). Standing alone, these statisti- cal tests would reveal little about the phenomenon.
Meta-Analysis———561
When the tests appear in a single standardized metric, the effect size, the situation typically clarifies dramat- ically. The most common effect sizes are d (the stan- dardized mean difference between two groups) and r (the correlation coefficient gauging the association between two variables). Each effect size receives a positive or negative sign to indicate the direction of the effect. As an example, a 1990 meta-analysis that Blair T. Johnson and Alice H. Eagly conducted to examine gender differences in leadership style defined effect sizes in such a way that positive signs were stereotypic (e.g., women more relationship-oriented) and negative signs were counterstereotypic (e.g., men more relationship-oriented). Typically, d is used for comparisons of two groups or groupings (e.g., gender differences in leadership style) and r for continuous variables (e.g., self-esteem and attractiveness). Then, the reviewer analyzes the effect sizes, first examining the mean effect size to evaluate its magni- tude, direction, and significance. More advanced analy- ses examine whether differing study methods change, or moderate, the magnitude of the effect sizes. In all of these analyses, sophisticated statistics help show whether the studies' effect sizes consistently agree with the general tendencies. Still other techniques help reveal which particular studies' findings differed most widely from the others, or examine the plausi- bility of a publication bias in the literature. Inspection for publication bias can be especially important when skepticism exists about whether the phenomenon under investigation is genuine. In such cases, pub- lished studies might be more likely to find a pattern than would unpublished studies. For example, many doubt the existence of so-called Phi effects, which refers to "mind reading." Any review of studies testing for the existence of Phi would have to be sensitive to the possibility that journals may tend to accept confir- mations of the phenomenon more than disconfirma- tions of it. Various strategies are available to detect the pres- ence of publication bias. As an example, Rosenthal and Rubin's fail-safe N provides a method to esti- mate the number of studies averaging nonsignificant that would change a mean effect size to being non- significant. If the number is large, then it is intuitively implausible that publication bias is an issue. Other, more sophisticated techniques permit reviewers to infer what effect size values non-included studies might take and how the inclusion of such values might affect the mean effect size. The detection of publication
bias is especially important when the goal of the meta- analytic review is to examine the statistical signifi- cance or the simple magnitude of a phenomenon. Publication bias is a far less pressing concern when the goal of the review is instead to examine how study dimensions explain when the studies' effect sizes are larger or smaller or when they reverse in their signs. Indeed, the mere presence of wide variation in the magnitude of effect sizes often suggests a lack of publication bias. Interpretation and presentation of the meta-analytic findings is the final step of the process. One consider- ation is the magnitude the mean effect sizes in the review. In 1969, Jacob Cohen informally analyzed the magnitude of effects commonly yielded by psycho- logical research and offered guidelines for judging effect size magnitude. Table 1 shows these standards for d, r, and r 2 ; the latter statistic indicates the extent to which one variable explains variation in the other. To illustrate, a small effect size (d = 0.20) is the dif- ference in height between 15- and 16-year-old girls, a medium effect (d = 0.50) is difference in intelligence scores between clerical and semiskilled workers, and a large effect (d = 0.80) is the difference in intelli- gence scores between college professors and college freshmen. It is important to recognize that quantitative magnitude is only one way to interpret effect size. Even very small mean effect sizes can be of great import for practical or applied contexts. In a close race for political office, for example, even a mass media campaign with a small effect size could reverse the outcome. Ideally, meta-analyses advance knowledge about a phenomenon not only by showing the size of the typ- ical effect but also by showing when the studies get larger or smaller effects, or by showing when effects
Guidelines for Magnitude of d and r
Effect Size Metric
Source: Adapted from Cohen (1969). Note: r appears in its point-biserial form.
562———Meta-Awareness
reverse in direction. At their best, meta-analyses test theories about the phenomenon. For example, Johnson and Eagly's meta-analysis of gender differ- ences in leadership style showed, consistent with their social-role theory hypothesis, that women had more relationship-oriented styles than men did, especially when the leadership role was communal in nature. Meta-analyses provide an empirical history of past research and suggest promising directions for future research. As a consequence of a carefully conducted meta-analysis, primary-level studies can be designed with the complete literature in mind and therefore have a better chance of contributing new knowledge. In this way, science can advance the most efficiently to produce new knowledge.
Blair T. Johnson
See also Research Methods
Cohen, J. (1969). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences. New York: Academic Press. Cooper, H. M., & Hedges, L. V. (Eds.). (1994). The handbook of research synthesis. New York: Russell Sage. Johnson, B. T., & Eagly, A. H. (2000). Quantitative synthesis of social psychological research. In H. T. Reis & C. M. Judd (Eds.), Handbook of research methods in social and personality psychology (pp. 496–528). London: Cambridge University Press. Lipsey, M. W., & Wilson, D. B. (2001). Practical meta-analysis. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
META-AWARENESS
To have an experience is not necessarily to know that one is having it. Situations such as suddenly realizing that one has not been listening to one's spouse (despite nodding attentively) or catching oneself shouting, "I'm not angry," illustrate that people sometimes fail to notice what is going on in their own heads. The intu- ition that there is a difference between having an experience and recognizing it permeates everyday language, as illustrated by the popular expression "get- ting in touch with your feelings" and the famous lyrical refrain "if you're happy and you know it, clap your hands." A variety of psychological terms have been used to characterize how people vary in their awareness of their thoughts and feelings, including
metacognitive awareness, private self-awareness, reflective awareness, introspective awareness, higher- order consciousness, second-order consciousness, autonoetic consciousness, and mindfulness. Never- theless, typically when researchers consider the aware- ness associated with psychological phenomena, the question boils down to whether a particular phenome- non is conscious. Attitudes are implicit or explicit, thoughts are conscious or unconscious, behaviors are automatic or controlled. Routinely, discussions fail to acknowledge the possibility that a thought, feeling, or action could be experienced without being explicitly noticed. In this entry, the term meta-awareness is used to refer to the explicit noticing of the content of experi- ence. Importantly, meta-awareness need not be assumed to be a distinct state of consciousness; rather, it may merely entail a particular topic for the focus of attention, that is, "What am I thinking or feeling." Because this is just one of many possible directions in which attention can be focused, it follows that meta-awareness is inter- mittent. The answer to this question represents a descrip- tion of one's state, rather than the state itself, so it offers individuals the opportunity to step out of the situation, which may be critical for effective self-regulation. However, it also raises the possibility that in the re- description process, individuals might get it wrong. Two types of dissociations follow from the claim that meta-awareness involves the intermittent re- representation of the contents of consciousness. Tem- poral dissociations occur when one temporarily fails to attend to the contents of consciousness. Once the focus of conscious turns onto itself, translation disso- ciations may occur if the re-representation process misrepresents the original experience.
Temporal Dissociations
Temporal dissociations between experience and meta- awareness are indicated in cases in which the induc- tion of meta-awareness causes one to assess aspects of experience that had previously eluded explicit appraisal. A variety of psychological phenomena can be thought of in this manner.
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Everyone has had the experience while reading of suddenly noticing that although his or her eyes have continued to move across the page, one's mind has been entirely elsewhere. The occurrence of
Meta-Awareness———563
mind-wandering during attentionally demanding tasks such as reading is particularly informative because it is incompatible with successfully carrying out such tasks and thus suggests that individuals have lost meta- awareness of what they are currently thinking about. Additional evidence that mind-wandering during read- ing is associated with an absence of meta-awareness comes from studies in which individuals report every time they notice their minds wandering during reading, while also being probed periodically and asked to indi- cate whether they were mind-wandering at that partic- ular moment. Such studies find that participants are often caught mind-wandering by the probes before they notice it themselves. These findings demonstrate that individuals frequently lack meta-awareness of the fact that they are mind-wandering, even when they are in a study in which they are specifically instructed to be vigilant for such lapses.
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Automatic behaviors are often assumed to be nonconscious. However, there is a peculiarity to this designation because it is difficult to imagine that individuals lack any experience corresponding to the automatic behaviors. Consider a person driving auto- matically while engaging in some secondary task (e.g., talking on the cell phone). Although such driving is compromised, one still experiences the road at some level. Similarly, when people engage in habitual con- sumptive behaviors, for example, smoking or eating, they presumably experience what they are consuming, yet may fail to take explicit stock of what they are doing. This may explain why people often unwittingly relapse in habits they are trying to quit. In short, it seems that rather than being unconscious, many automatic activities may be experienced but lacking in meta-awareness.
MMooooddss
At any given time, people's experience is being colored by the particular mood that they are in. They may be happy because it is sunny out, or grumpy because they've had a bad day at work. However, because people often fail to notice their moods, moods can have undue influence on people's judgments and behaviors. When in an unnoticed bad mood, people may be more likely to snap at their partners, and when in an unnoticed good mood, they may be more likely to believe that their lives are going particularly well.
Translation Dissociations
If meta-awareness requires re-representing the contents of consciousness, then it follows that some information may become lost or distorted in the trans- lation. Examples of translation dissociations include the following.
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Some experiences are inherently difficult to put into words: the appearance of a face, the taste of a wine, the intuitions leading to insights. If individuals attempt to translate these inherently nonverbal experi- ences into words, then the resulting re-representations may fail to do justice to the o