Weeks 4-6by Mimicker In case you missed my last post: I'm taking a class taught by Dr. Robert Cialdini this year. I finally got the book for the class the other week, so this post will contain both information presented by Cialdini in lectures, and from a book he co-authored entitled "Social Psychology ~ Unraveling The Mystery" by Cialdini, Kenrick, and Neuberg. Alright, here we go... there's a lot of information here so I tried to divide it into sections and give each section a title: MULTIPLE SELVES - Is there just one of you, or several? Just as your view of others might include multiple exemplars, your self-view includes multiple selves. For instance, Martin Luther King Jr. probably saw himself as a husband, a father, a leader, and a preacher. Other selves are linked to the future – they represent what hope to become, what you want to become, and what you fear becoming. Future selves like these are important because they help define our goals and direct our actions. For example, when we believe that our “actual selves” – who we think we actually are – fall short of our “future selves”- who we think we ought to be – we become anxious, which motivates us to work harder. Most of us, like Dr. King, “have a dream,” and in dream of a better future world we may also imagine a better future “me.” Finally, most of us possess, to some degree, a collective self. Just as King saw himself as being a black American, you might view yourself as a New Yorker, or member of some other group. MORE NOTES ON MULTIPLE SELVES and SELF-SERVING ATTRIBUTIONS – When people are asked to talk about how much they’ve changed in the past 10 years, they often perceive that they’ve changed a whole lot. However, usually they say that they’re friends around them haven’t. We often judge other people differently than we judge ourselves. For example, whenever OTHER people make mistakes in a situation, we initially see the mistake as a reflection of their personality. But when we commit the same mistake, we will see it as a consequence of the situation, with no reflection on our own personality. This is what we call a self-serving bias. You take personal credit for your success, and blame external forces for your failure. The self-serving bias partially arises from the expectations we have for our performances: we often expect to succeed, so we’re likely to interpret our successes as reflecting our abilities and efforts; because we don’t expect to fail, we’re likely to look for external events that “got in the way.” More fundamentally, however, the self-serving bias is a way to enhance our self-image. Taking credit for our successes helps us feel good about ourselves. This tendency is so common that it often extends beyond our individual selves, leading us to make self-serving explanations for the social groups to which we belong and the sports terms we support. Let’s try an exercise (you can also try this on your friends): Rank the six traits below in order of importance. If you think the most important that people be intelligent, you should rank intelligence first; if you think it least important that people be sensitive, you should rank sensitivity sixth. And so on:
Now rank the characteristics again, this time in terms of how well they represent you. That is, if you think creativity is your strong suit, you should rank it first. What do you find when you compare the two rankings? If you’re like most people, the two rankings will look similar. That is, if you see yourself as pretty smart, you’re likely to place a high value on intelligence; if you believe yourself to be funny, you will put more weight on sense of humor. In general, people tend to value quite highly – in both themselves and others – those characteristics and abilities they happen to possess. Similarly, they tend to devalue the traits and abilities they don’t have. INTERPRETING PHYSIOLOGICAL STATES - In one study done by Valins, male college students were brought into a lab and shown slides of playboy centerfolds. While they were seeing these photos, they had their heart rate monitored, and could even hear the heart rate themselves. However, the heart rate the experimenters played for the students, was a fake heart rate. The experimenters manipulated this heartbeat so that on half of the slides of centerfolds, the fake heart rate increased, and the other half it did not increase. Then, after seeing all the slides, they were asked to rate the women. On an 80-point scale, the “heart rate increase” sets of photos were rated an average of 72 points, while the “no heart rate increase” set were rated an average of 54. Then the subjects were told they were the last one for the experiment, and they didn’t need the slides anymore. And then the experimenter told the subject he could choose half of the slides to take home, since they didn’t need them anymore. The experimenter then left the room, leaving the subject alone to choose photos. But really, the experimenter was just waiting outside the door for the subject to come out, so he could see what photo’s he chose. So when the subject came out, the experimented grabbed the photos from him and was like “Give me those photos! What were you going to do with them?... You little pervert!” Haha, ok, that last part was just a joke by Cialdini. Anyway, 75% of the students took more than half his photo’s from the “heart rate increase” set of photos. They DID record the subject’s ACUTAL heart rate during the experiment though. And actually, ALL of the photos shown increased the subject’s REAL heart rate. So, the subject’s sexual attraction to the playboy centerfolds, was determined not by what was REALLY going on inside of them, it was what they THOUGHT was going on. This is one of the things that separate us from animals: our cognition is greatly responsible for what we feel. THE SOCIAL COMPARISON THEORY and REWARDING OTHERS - Where do our beliefs and feelings about ourselves come from? Sometimes we may learn about ourselves through a reflected appraisal process – by observing or imagining what others think of us. Through this process, a child who believes that her parents view her as talented, amusing, or overweight may come to think of herself similarly. People also come to know themselves through social comparison – the process of comparing one’s own abilities, attitudes, and beliefs with those of others. For example, by seeing how well your exam grades compare to a classmate’s you may learn something about your academic abilities. We sometimes come to understand ourselves in the same we come to understand others. For instance, if you see a neighbor yelling at his kid, you might guess he’s insensitive or cruel. We may learn about ourselves in a similar way, by “stepping outside ourselves” and observing our own actions. By engaging in this self-perception process – the process through which people observe their own behavior to infer their own internal characteristics – the neighbor may come to believe that he is not a very good parent. Consider an experiment by Lepper, Green, and Nisbett. Children attending a preschool we observed playing with various toys, games, art materials, etc, and those children who demonstrated an intrinsic, inherent interest in drawing with magic markers were selected for the experiment. Two weeks later, these children we individually pulled aside and asked if they would draw pictures for a visitor. The children in the “expected reward” condition were told they would get a “Good Player Award” – with a gold star and a ribbon – for drawing the pictures, and they received the award when they were finished. Children in the “unexpected reward” condition did not expect the reward, but received one anyway when done. Finally, children in the “no reward” condition knew nothing of the reward at any point, and never received one. Seven to fourteen days later, observers returned to the preschool to assess how much time the children would freely spend playing with the magic markers. What do you think they found? Which children retained their intrinsic interest in the activity? For children who expected a payoff, the reward backfired – they became even LESS interested in playing with the markers. Why? Because they “watched” themselves draw after having been offered an award for doing so, they might have inferred that they really weren’t very interested in drawing for its own sake. Children in the “expected award” condition not only spent less time playing with the magic markers in the free-play period, but their interest in the markers had decreased significantly from several weeks earlier. These children apparently inferred that they had been playing with these markers IN ORDER to get the reward – that the reward, and not their own intrinsic interest, was controlling their behavior. These aren’t unusual findings: Much research now shows that when we reward people for doing what they already like to do, we may kill their interest in the activity. Society’s practice, then, of rewarding students for the learning that most kids naturally enjoy may actually turn them off to self-education. Of course, if a child just isn’t interested in reading, rewards may be necessary. Nonetheless, praise and other rewards can have seriously detrimental effects, especially if these rewards are perceived as an attempt to control one’s actions. EVALUATING PERSONALITIES OF OTHERS - People are pretty proficient at assessing the potential opportunities and threats others might provide. For instance, on the basis of just facial photographs or short silent videos, people are able to assess with a reasonable degree of accuracy, the extent to which others are dominant, extraverted, conscientious, agreeable, aggressive, and sexually available. In one striking study, participants were able to judge accurately the effectiveness of teachers after watching just a two-second SOUNDLESS film of them in action. In sum, the people we encounter provide us various kinds of opportunities and threats, which we often discern quite effectively and with little effort. APPEARING LIKABLE - To be liked is to belong, to share the ample benefits of being tied into a social network. When we’re liked, others will go the extra yard for us, excuse our mistakes, and generally make our lives easier. As a consequence, we want others to like us, and the lengths to which we go to be liked are quite impressive… Ingratiation is an attempt to get others to like us. We have many ways to ingratiate ourselves with others. To ingratiate yourself with a new neighbor, for instance, you may do her a favor, become friends with one of her friends, or tell funny jokes. Four ingratiation strategies seem particularly effective, and we’ll explore them now. -Expressing Like for Others. “Flattery will get you nowhere,” claims the cultural maxim. Untrue. Complimenting others can be an effective technique for getting others to like us, if handled delicately. For instance, having a coworker subtly mention to your boss how much you respect him can be a particularly successful form of flattery, because your boss is less likely to see the compliment as manipulative when it comes from a third party. Asking others for advice is also often effective, as it implies respect for their expertise and knowledge. Indeed, flattery is usually quite successful: Although we’re quick to interpret as insincere the flattering statements people make towards others, we often quite readily accept compliments directed towards us. And why not? After all, in OUR particular case, the compliments are clearly well deserved! People express their liking for others through nonverbal means as well. For instance, when we want others to like us, we may unconsciously mimic their behavior with our own – crossing our legs when they cross theirs, rubbing our chin when they rub theirs, etc. And it works: people like us more when we subtly imitate their nonverbal behaviors. Smiling, in particular, is a powerful tool for getting others to like us. In “How to Win Friends and Influence People – Dale Carnegie wore, “a smile says ‘I like you. You make me happy. I am glad to see you’” -Creating Similarity Consider a study done with female students at Princeton University exploring how people form impressions of one another. In the first stage of the study, the women received information from a male student whom they expected to meet later. The information either suggestion that he was either quite desirable (a tall, 21 yr. old Princeton senior who had a car and who was athletic, unattached and interested in meeting women) or not (a short, 18 yr. old, unathletic non-Princeton freshman who had a girlfriend and no car). The women additionally learned that he was either quite traditional in his beliefs about women (believing that the ideal woman is emotional, concerned with how she looks, passive, and the like), or nontraditional in his beliefs (believing the ideal woman is independent, ambitious, and so forth). The women then complete several questionnaires for the male student to peruse, including one about attitudes about gender roles. And they found that when the partner was desirable, the women modified their opinions to match his. Other research demonstrates that men do the same when presenting their views to desirable women. The bottom line? We often adjust our public opinions to like us. But why? To put it simply, people like those who are similar to them and dislike who are different than them – and we know it! People like others who dress like them, who share their tastes in movies and foods, and who hold similar opinions. It makes sense, that often we CREATE similarity to ingratiate ourselves with others by altering our dress, activities, or public opinions. -Making Ourselves Physically Attractive Physically attractive are indeed liked more and viewed more favorably than unattractive people. Attractive people are seen as more honest. They are more likely to be hire for managerial positions and elected to public office, even thought interviewers and voters deny any influence of physical appearance. They receive lesser finer and bail judgements and shorter sentences in felony cases. They get paid more: compared to being of average attractiveness, there’s an approximately 7% penalty for being unattractive and 5% premium for being highly attractive. All other things being equal, this 12% difference is the same gap you’d expect to find between one employee and another having an extra 1.5 years of education! Physically attractive people are more desirable in romantic relationships. Even newborn infants receive more affection from their mothers when they’re cute. It clearly pays to be physically attractive. -Projecting Modesty If you aced an exam, receiving the highest grade in the class, would you immediately announce it to others? Not if you want to be liked! People who downplay their successes are generally liked more than people who boast of them. Consequently, we often give public credit to others for aiding in our successes and gently point to weaknesses we have in other, less important areas. Being modest has its risks however. If people don’t know of your successes, they may believe you when you profess lack of talent. If you are too modest, people may think you have horribly low self-esteem or little self-insight. And if you appear insincere in minimizing the importance of what you’ve done (“Oh, the award is no big deal”), people may view you as smug and arrogant. These risks aside, modest individuals tend to be liked. MORE ON APPEARING LIKEABLE - Desire to be liked seems generally more important to women than to men. In social situations, women smile more than men, and are more likely to adjust their opinions to match those held by others. Why is this though? Other than societal factors of expecting women to present themselves in a likeable and proper manner, biological factors may be important also. Compared to men, women usually have much lower levels of testosterone. People who have high testosterone use more confrontational, hardened ways of getting what they want from others, and they are less friendly, are less concerned about others’ welfare, and smile less. In contrast, people who have lower levels of testosterone are friendly and are more likely to use politeness and social graces to achieve their goals. PEOPLE IN POWERFUL POSITIONS AND APPEARING LIKEABLE - Those who occupy positions of power are often less focused on getting others to like them. Although people in powerful positions possess more tools of influence, and thus need to rely less on ingratiation, they too want to be liked. Interestingly, they tend to use different ingratiation tactics than do their less powerful counterparts. Because they are unlikely to be perceived as “brown-nosing” their subordinates, it is less risky for them to seek affection by rendering favors and giving out compliments. On the other hand, people in positions of power rarely seek liking by conforming their opinions to match their subordinates’, as to do so might threaten their status. STATUS AND POWER IN NONVERBAL EXPRESSIONS - Much as we might smile to convey the impression we are likeable, we adopt others forms of body language to communicate images of status and power. For instance, people who feel secure in their high status tend to adopt more relaxed, “open” postures – postures that take up more space and lay claim to greater territory. High-status individuals demand attention from others but seem relatively unconcerned with others and what they’re doing. This is demonstrated in “visual dominance behavior,” whereby high-status individuals maintain eye contact with their audiences while speaking, but pay less attention when listening. In contrast, low-status people orient toward those who have higher status, both with their body positions and their eyes. High-status individuals are also more likely to interrupt others and to place themselves in positions of prominence, such as the header chair in the corporate boardroom. High-status people are also more likely to touch other and to encroach on their personal space, that invisible barrier or “bubble” we like to keep between ourselves and others. Although high-status persons look relaxed when their status is secure, their posturing may change dramatically when that status is threatened. To communicate power, for instance, we may act angry – because angry people are potentially dangerous people. Indeed, threats to status often result in dominance displays remarkably similar to those exhibited by other animals. Like gorillas, we may puff ourselves up to full size, stiffen our back, tighten our brows, thrust our chins forward, and learn toward the challenger. These displays often suffice to convince others of our power. Also, men who have high levels of testosterone behave more aggressively toward another and, like male members of other primate species, generally become more dominant than those who have lower levels of testosterone. Mimicker This article was originally posted on FastSeduction.com. You may find more articles by Mimicker in the Archive Search or the Poster Zip Archives. |
