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Summary Social Psychology Chapter 4
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The notes are based on Chapter 4 in 'Social Psychology, a South African perspective' textbook.
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Chapter 4 –Unit 3
Choices and actions: The self in control
1st Topic
Introduction:
Hansie Cronje:
South African cricket captain.
Seen as a moral, upstanding leader who would help to transform South African cricket.
Indian police charged him with match-fixing.
Banned from cricket for life
Found it hard to get off the path of manipulating results.
Claimed that his actions were dictated by Satan.
Expressed regret afterwards
What you do and what it means:
Culture is a network of meaning
o Human beings who live in culture act based on meaning; what you do depends partly on
what it means.
Thinking enables people to make use of meaning.
o Make better choices for guiding behaviour.
William James: the father of American Psychology
Making choices
• Two steps to making choices:
1. Reduce the range of choices to a few
This step contains some risk
You can potentially reject a good choice without even considering it as an option.
2. Carefully compare highlighted options
Perform a mental cost-benefit analysis.
Weight the advantages and disadvantages of each decision.
• Influences on choice
some major patterns that guide people’s choices:
• Risk aversion: in decision-making, the greater weight is given to the possible losses than possible
gains.
• Temporal discounting: greater weight is given to the present than the future.
• The certainty effect: greater weight is given to definite outcomes than mere possibilities.
• Keeping your options open: postpone decision making to keep options open for as long as
possible.
, Why people don’t choose
Decision avoidance
The general theme is anticipated regret
Postponing
Status quo bias: the preference to keep things the way they are.
Omission bias: the tendency to take whatever course of action does not require you to do
anything; making the ‘default choice’.
Some decisions are too difficult
Too many vs few choices
Reactance theory
The idea that people are distressed by loss of freedom or options and seek to reclaim or
reassert them.
Example: page 109
Consequences of reactance
May want forbidden option more
May take steps to reclaim the lost option
May feel/act aggressively
Freedom to change
Entity theory: Good and bad traits are fixed
o People should not be expected to change
o Prefer to do things they are good at
o Failure is devastating and produce learned helplessness
Incremental theory: Traits can change and be improved upon
o People can change
o Likely to enjoy learning and challenges
o Failure forces them to try harder
o Freedom of action
More or less free
o Some choices are made freely
o External factors may constrain other choices
Free action comes from inside
o Self-determination theory: people need some degree of autonomy and internal motivation
Having an out versus no escape
o Panic button effect: reduction in stress due to belief that one has an escape
Setting and pursuing goals
o Goals: ideas of some desired future state
o Setting goals:
Choosing among possible goals
Evaluating their feasibility and desirability
Pursuing goals: Planning and carrying out behaviours to reach goals
Insert Table 4.1
Hierarchy of goals
o Most people have interlinked sets of goals.
o Short-term (proximal) goals
o Long-term (distal) goals
Duplex mind is relevant to goal hierarchies:
o Automatic system: helps with keeping track and initiate behaviour to pursue goals.
o Deliberate system: helps with when intermediate goals are blocked.
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