Hot Cognition

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Hot Cognition

• Motivation and Affect

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Hot Cognition

• Mental processes driven by our goals and
  feelings.
• Motivations and affect can influence the type of
  cognitive processes we evoke and the concepts and
  rules we activate.
• We will begin by discussing Motivations and
  goals. Thursday we will turn our attention to how
  affect influences information processing.

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Motivation

• Kunda (1990) wrote a very influential paper
  called Motivated Reasoning in which she
  specified several types of goals and how those
  can influence the reasoning process and judgment.
• She specified 2 main types of goals, Directional
  goals and Accuracy Goals, either of which can at
  times lead to biases in information processing.
• In the book, she mentions another type of goal
  too, a closure goal, to which we will return.

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Directional goals

• The goal of arriving at a particular conclusion.
• Evidence for these goals comes from several areas
  of research, such as the self-serving bias
  literature, outcome dependency, the role of
  arousal, self affirmation, and so forth.

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SSB

• Greenberg et al (1985)
• Participants took an aptitude test.
• IV told they did very well, very poorly, or
  received no feedback
• Participants were then given an opportunity to
  evaluate the test.
• What happened?

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The Self-Serving Bias

• In general, people take credit for their
  successes, but blame external factors for their
  failures. This phenomenon is known as the
  self-serving bias.
• Many have supposed that this bias results from
  motivations.

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Self Serving Bias?

• We engage in a lot of mental gymnastics to paint
  ourselves in the best possible light. For
  example, we
• derogate negative feedback
• think we are better than average on positive
  attributes
• change the way we think of ourselves so that we
  are in a better position to get a job
• think we are responsible for our groups success,
  etc.

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Why do we do this?

• There are 2 primary accounts
• Motivational (2 very different views)
• The SSB serves an intra-psychic repair function
  (it helps us feel better about ourselves)
• Many have argued that we engage in this bias
  because we want to, or have a need to, feel good
  about ourselves (especially if we currently do
  not).
• The SSB helps us save face following failure
  experiences (self-presentational motives).

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Support for each

• Intra-psychic repair
• Weary (1980) individuals report higher egotism
  after claiming credit for success or denying
  credit for failure. (suggest self-esteem was
  enhanced).
• Pyszczynski et al. (1985)
• Self-presentation
• Arkin (1979) SSB enhanced when participants are
  highly publicly identifiable cf. control
  (although still biased then). No results for
  self-monitoring though, curiously.

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Why do we do this?

• 2. Cognitive
• We expect to do well (we are super awesome after
  all) and we think we are good and smart). So, if
  we do poorly, we conclude that the task (e.g., a
  test) must be faulty, not that we are dumb.
• Miller and Ross (1975) wrote a PR offering this
  explanation.
• Support abounds (e.g., Lassiter Munhall (2001).

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Which one is it? ORIs the SSB Multiply
Determined?

• Suppose you do poorly on a test, then blame the
  professors unfair questions for your
  performance. Do you feel better now?
• Some evidence suggests that you would report that
  you do (e.g., Weary, 1980).
• However, such reports are the other half of the
  SSB (i.e., the test is bad, I am good).
• Self-presentational possibilities If you deny
  credit for poor performance, it is inconsistent
  to report feeling bad or having low Self Esteem.

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Study 1 Handley Carroll (in prep) Self-serving
or face saving?

• Study 1 was designed to test the idea that
  engaging in the SSB after receive negative
  feedback does not actually make individuals feel
  better than individuals who are given no
  opportunity to engage in the SSB.
• We do derogate negative feedback though.
• Why?
• To save face perhaps to preserve our social
  standing (we dont want to look like an idiot,
  even if we know we are one). And, excuses work
  (e.g., Schlenker).

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Our First Study Does the self-serving bias
actually serve the self?

• Participants took an IQ test, then were subjected
  to one of 3 conditions
• Negative feedback, evaluated the test.
• Negative feedback, did NOT evaluate the test.
• No feedback (control), evaluated the test.
• Then participants were told they were going to
  watch either a Self-Enhancing video or a Neutral
  video.
• DV how much do you want to watch the video?

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Results Study 1
how much do you want to watch the video?
sig
sig
ns
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Study 1 Conclusions

• The SSB apparently does not make people feel
  better about themselves.
• These results are not clearly explained by the
  cognitive account.
• So, perhaps individuals derogate negative
  feedback to save face.

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Study 2Does the SSB Help Us Save Face?

• A yoked experiment.
• Participants saw the test participants completed
  in Study 1 (did not take the test)
• Participants then saw actual test evaluations
  from participants in Study 1, and their supposed
  test performance, depending on condition.
• Test, neg feedback, test evaluation
• Test, neg feedback, NO test evaluation
• Test, NO feedback, test evaluation (which were
  not completed in a self-serving way)

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DVs for Study 2

• Aptitude, Competence, Intelligence
• And several others (all worked, significantly)
• Participants in Study 1 who received negative
  feedback and answered questions in a self-serving
  way were rated higher than participants from the
  control condition and participants who received
  negative feedback but did not get to answer
  questions in an SS way.

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Results Study 2
Intelligence of Study 1 participants
sig
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Conclusions from Study 2

• Engaging in the self-serving bias DOES help us
  save face in front of others.
• This adds further support to the idea that we
  engage in the SSB to save face, not to feel
  better about ourselves.

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Outcome Dependency

• When your welfare or goals are tied to the
  performance of another person, we are motivated
  to believe they will do well.
• Berschied et al. (1976)
• Had participants watch a videotape of three
  individuals interacting, with one of whom the
  participants believed they would be later going
  on a blind date.
• IV 4 groups, one thinking they would date a
  different one of the 3 people, and a control
  condition)
• DV likeability and positive personality of each
  person
• Results?

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Outcome Dependency

• There is not really a non-motivational account
  for these types of findingsmotivation seems
  necessary to explain them.
• Why? Participants had no prior expectation
  about the people they saw, and the cognitive
  account relies on the presence of such
  expectations.
• The information about the people was not varied,
  just the knowledge they would be interacting with
  a given person later.

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Arousal

• Cognitive Dissonance Theory (Festinger, 1957)
• We have a need for our attitudes, beliefs, and
  behaviors to be in sync with each other that is,
  to be consistent.
• When we have incompatible attitude or beliefs, or
  behave in a way inconsistent with or attitudes or
  believes, we experience dissonance, a state of
  negative arousal.
• We experience dissonance because holding
  inconsistencies imply that our future is
  uncertain, that we cannot predict our own
  attitudes and behaviors, and that we do not
  understand ourselves.
• When we experience dissonance, we are motivated
  to reduce it (it is aversive).

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Arousal

• There are a few ways one can reduce dissonance
  once they behave inconsistently with their
  attitude
• One can make the inconsistencies seem trivial
  (its not that bad the way I do it)
• One can rationalize the inconsistency (this is
  just one bad behavior among many good ones)
• One can change their attitudes to be in line with
  their behavior. Now there is no inconsistency.

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Festinger and Carlsmith

• Peg-turning study
• Very boring task
• Paid 1 or 20 to lie to the next participant
  that the experiment was actually a lot of fun.
• 1 not enough to lie (Belief I do not lie for
  a mere dollar)
• 20 enough to lie (I think it is OK to tell a
  little lie for 20).
• 1 people, therefore, behaved inconsistently with
  their belief.
• So, what do they do regarding their attitudes
  toward the task?

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Another example

• Write a pro-Castro essay
• IV told (forced) to write it or asked to write
  it with strong encouragement (still, free will)
• Forced belief that I would write a
  counter-attitudinal essay when an authority
  figure tells be too.
• Free will I would prefer not to write a
  counter-attitudinal essay (but they still do).
• What happens?

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Self-Perception Theory (non-motivational)

• Bem (1967, 1972)
• We do not generally have direct access to our
  attitudes. Rather, we look to our behavior to
  figure out what our attitudes are, assuming they
  are consistent with our behaviors
• I wrote a pro-Castro because I was forced to, I
  must not like Castro.
• I wrote a pro-Castro essay of my own free will, I
  must think Castro is an ok guy.
• Detached outside observers would make the same
  conclusions.

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Motivation or no?

• Enter Zanna and Cooper (1974)
• For negative arousal (dissonance) to motivate
  attitude change
• Individuals must experience the negative arousal
  (i.e., dissonance actually exists)
• Individuals must believe that arousal resulted
  from behaving inconsistently with their
  attitudes/beliefs.

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Zanna and Cooper (1974)

• In an experiment, all participants were asked to
  ingest a pill (actually sugar placebo).
• IV 1/3 told it would have no effect. 1/3 told it
  would make them feel aroused and tense, 1/3 told
  it would make them feel calm and relaxed.
• Participants then wrote a counter-attitudinal
  essay.
• DV Participants reported their attitude about
  the topic of the essay.
• Results?
• Who reported attitude more favorable toward the
  topic of the essay (i.e., who agreed with what
  they wrote)??
• Control vs. aroused
• calm compared to others?

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Zanna and Cooper (1974)

• If participants were simply inferring their
  attitudes as Bem suggested, their attributions
  about the source of their arousal should not
  matter.
• Also, apparently participants did experience
  arousal which had to be explained away otherwise
  lead to attitude change. Bem suggested no arousal
  would be evoked (or was necessary to explain the
  results).

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Self-Affirmation

• Steele (1988)
• Engaging in counter-attitudinal behaviors leads
  to attitude change because they threaten our
  self-image.
• That is, we feel bad about ourselves for lying,
  writing pro-Castro essays, and so forth.
• If I agree with what I just did, then I am not a
  bad person after all.
• But, we can feel better about ourselves via other
  means as well. We can change our attitude to feel
  better, or we could simply think about how great
  we are in general.
• If we find some other way to feel good about
  ourselves, we will no longer experience a reason
  to change attitude.
• We are good again, so no need to change.

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Steele and Liu (1983)

• SV Recruited 2 types of students, some concerned
  about economics and politics, and those who were
  not.
• All participants wrote an essay favoring a
  tuition increase (counter).
• IV ½ forced ½ freely chosen.
• Some participants were asked to report their
  attitudes immediately.
• Forced no change
• Free change (just like earlier experiments)

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Steele and Liu (1983)

• Some participants were asked to complete a
  questionnaire about their political and economic
  attitudes (i.e., self-affirm).
• Irrelevant
• Forced no change
• Free change
• Self-affirmed
• Forced no change
• Free no change

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Bounded by reality?

• Our ability to engage in these biased directional
  searches is bounded by reality. There is an
  influence, but we are not completely out of
  touch.
• Remember the Santioso, Kunda, and Fong (1990)
  work on introverts and extroverts.
• Dunning et al (1989) better than average works
  best for ambiguous traits, well defined ones like
  punctual and well-read less so. See also Alicke
  et al (1995) who find that the presence of others
  reduces this effect.

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Doosje et al. (1995)

• Doosje et al. (1995) good test question.
• IV Your group tends to be very, or not very,
  pro-social.
• IV This evidence is based on a large or small
  sample.
• People accepted positive and negative information
  when the sample was large (rational)
• People only accepted the positive conclusion when
  the sample size was small.
• Schaller (1992)
• There is a correlation between gender and
  leadership.
• Woman, but not men, were more likely to notice
  that this correlation was an illusion due to the
  fact that there are more men in the high level
  executive positions.

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• Motivation can effect which rules we use
  (representativeness, statistical, availability,
  positive-test strategy, etc.)
• It can also affect our effort.

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Lord, Ross, and Lepper (1979)

• Recruited Pro- and anti- capital punishment
  people
• Had them read one experiment that demonstrated
  capital punishment was ineffective and one
  experiment that demonstrated capital punishment
  was effective in deterring crime.
• Strength of the experiments were balanced.
• Participants reported their attitudes about
  capital punishment after.
• Subsequent research demonstrated this was due to
  greater refutation (thoughts) about the counter
  position.
• Taylor -The biases that result from motivated
  reasoning might be a good thing in that they keep
  us happy, motivated, etc. Depressed people show
  these biases less.

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Accuracy Goals

• Sometimes we adopt a goal to arrive at the best,
  most accurate decision.
• Accountability
• Importance
• When this is the case, we tend to think more
  carefully, and invest more cognitive effort in
  our decision making process.
• However, this does not always mean that were will
  arrive at the most accurate conclusion.
• We may mistakenly use the wrong strategy, but
  believe it will give us the correct answer.

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Accuracy Goals

• Tetlock and Kim (1987)
• Participants received information on 3
  individuals.
• Some participants were made accountable (must
  explain decisions to research) or not.
• Participants were asked to write down
  descriptions, predict personalities of these 3
  people.
• Results?
• So, accuracy goals to seem to foster more?

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Accuracy Goals

• Kruglanski et al (1983, 1985) found that accuracy
  goals also reduced several cognitive biases, such
  as stereotype use, primacy effects, and
  anchoring.
• Sometimes, accuracy goals will result in the
  adoption of faulty strategies, such as the
  availability heuristic, or flawed statistical
  reasoning (e.g., overlooking the base rates),
  because we do not know the proper way to make the
  judgment.
• For example, people make less extreme judgments
  of people when they are given irrelevant
  information and accuracy goal (greater dilution
  effects Tetlock Boettger, 1989).

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Tying together Directional and Accuracy Goals

• We engage in a decision-making process that
  entails steps. This is Gollwitzers idea in a
  nutshell (actually more elaborate)
• 1) we need to make a decision evokes a
  deliberative mindset in which we consider all
  possibilities and try to arrive at the best
  conclusion (accuracy goals).
• 2) We make a decision, and need to carry it
  through evokes an implementational mindset in
  which we think of actions and thoughts needed to
  bring our decision into reality (directional
  goals).
• See book for more.
• Closure goals see book.

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Approaching pleasure and avoiding pain (Higgins,
1997)
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Compatibility of strategy and task-framing

• Shah, Higgins, Friedman, 1998
• Anagram task In all cases, if solve 90 of the
  anagrams, get paid 5
• HOWEVER, manipulate how this task is described to
  participants. Task is framed to highlight
• promotion (gain-frame) given 4, told that get
  extra an extra 1 for solving 90 or more
• prevention (loss-frame) given 5, told that can
  avoid losing 1 if solve 90 or more

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Results

• No overall effect of task-framing on performance
• Performance was affected by the match between
  participants chronic strategies and the task
  framing
• The stronger a participants promotion focus, the
  better they did when the goal was framed in terms
  of achieving a gain (e.g., earn an extra if
  solve 90)
• The stronger a participants prevention focus,
  the better they did when the goal was framed in
  terms of avoiding a loss (e.g., avoid losing a
  if you solve 90)

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Promotion and prevention

• Some people are prevention vs. promotion focused.
• We can temporarily manipulate this construct
  overall (across all individuals)
• Influence our goals, choices, etc.
• Pills that reduce food consumption or boost
  metabolism.

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Affect
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Mood-congruent Judgments

• Under many situations, our judgments will be
  influenced in the direction of our affect.
• Isen et al. (1978)
• IV Half of the participants received a gift,
  half none.
• Participants were later approached by another
  experimenter and asked to rate various consumer
  products.
• Results.

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Mood-congruent Judgments

• Forgas (1994)
• IV Approached people after they watched a happy,
  sad, or no movie.
• DV Asked them to judge their own responsibility
  for current conflicts in their intimate
  relationships.
• Results?

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Mood-congruent Judgments

• Bower (1981) network model, suggests that the
  experience of affect can activate concepts
  related to that affective valance.
• Happy, happy concepts have an overall higher
  level of activation.

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Mood-as-information

• Schwarz and Clore (1983)
• When making a judgment, our current affect can
  serve as informationwhen relevant.
• However, we often do not reflect carefully enough
  on the relevance of the affect.
• IV Called people on rainy or sunny days
• IV were first asked about the weather or not.
• DV report general life satisfaction.
• Results?

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Mood-as-information

• This highlights that the effects of affect on
  judgment are not just influenced by spreading
  activation (Bower).
• If so, then we should see the same trend
  regardless of the weather reminder.
• But, when the informational value of affect is
  compromised, it will not be used in judgments.