New York University Social Beliefs Systems Discussion

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New York University

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Select 2 of the following prompts

  1. What is the age-based double standard of perceived competence in young and older adults?
  2. What three factors must be considered when understanding social belief systems?
  3. Are negative views of aging assimilated into adults' views of themselves?
  4. How does our use of primary and secondary control strategies change across the life span?
  5. What is collaborative cognition?
  6. According to McAdams, how does a life story develop over time?
  7. What are the research findings concerning religiosity and ethnicity?

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CHAPTER EIGHT Social Cognition Stereotypes and Aging • Learning Objectives – How does the content of stereotypes about aging differ across adulthood? – How do young and older adults perceive the competency of the elderly? – How do negative stereotypes about aging unconsciously guide our behavior? Stereotypes and Aging • Content of Stereotypes – Stereotypes: A special kind of social knowledge structure or social belief that represents organized prior knowledge about a group of people that affects how we interpret new information – Young and older adults hold similar stereotypes about aging. Stereotypes and Aging • Age Stereotypes and Perceived Competence – An age-based double standard operates when people judge older adults’ failures in memory. • In this case, younger adults judge older adults who are forgetful more harshly than older adults do. • However, younger adults also make positive judgments about older adults being more responsible despite such memory failures. Stereotypes and Aging • Activation of Stereotypes – Implicit stereotypes • Automatically activated negative stereotypes about aging guide behavior beyond our awareness. – Implicit negative stereotypes can negatively influence performance. – Implicit stereotyping influences the way we communicate with older adults. • Patronizing talk – Includes slow speech, simple vocabulary, careful enunciation, a demeaning emotional tone, and superficial conversation Stereotypes and Aging • Stereotype Threat – An evoked fear of being judged in accordance with a negative stereotype about a group to which you belong • Do negative stereotypes influence the cognitive functioning of older adults? • Middle-aged adults are also susceptible to negative age stereotypes. • Influence of stereotypes is not restricted to memory. – Physical aging is also a negative aging stereotype. Social Knowledge Structures and Beliefs • Learning Objectives – What are social knowledge structures? – What are social beliefs, and how do they change with age? – What are self-perceptions of aging, and what influences them across adulthood? Social Knowledge Structures and Beliefs • Understanding Age Differences in Social Beliefs – Understanding age differences in social belief systems has three important aspects: • We must examine the specific content of social beliefs. • We must consider the strength of these beliefs to know under what conditions they may influence behavior. • We need to know the likelihood that these beliefs are being violated or questioned. Social Knowledge Structures and Beliefs • Understanding Age Differences in Social Beliefs – Age differences were found in the types of social rules evoked in different types of situations. • The belief “Marriage is more important that a career” increases with age. • Compare with “The marriage was already in trouble” which has an inverted U-shaped relationship – Cohort differences can be profound. Social Knowledge Structures and Beliefs • Self-Perception and Social Beliefs – Self-Perception of Aging: Individuals’ perceptions of their own age and aging • The social stereotypes we hold about aging influence what we believe about ourselves. – Two frameworks for this influence: • Labeling theory: When confronting an age-related stereotype, older adults are more likely to integrate into their self-perception • Resilience theory: Confronting a negative stereotype results in a rejection of that view Social Judgment Processes • Learning Objectives – What is the negativity bias in impression formation, and how does it influence older adult’s thinking? – Are there age differences in accessibility of social information? – How does processing context influence social judgments? – To what extent do processing capacity limitations influence social judgments in older adults? Social Judgment Processes • Impression Formation – The way we form and revise first impressions about others. – Declines in cognitive processing resources might impact the social judgment process. • Research suggests that we make initial snap judgments and later correct or adjust them based on more reflective thinking. Social Judgment Processes • Impression Formation (cont.) – Older adults use less detailed information when making an initial impression – Negativity bias: When people allow their initial negative impressions to stand despite subsequent positive information • Older adults are more prone to this bias Social Judgment Processes Social Judgment Processes Social Judgment Processes • Knowledge Accessibility and Social Judgments – Social knowledge: When we are faced with new situations, we draw on our previous experiences stored in memory. • Social knowledge structures must be available and accessible to guide behavior. – Source Judgments: Trying to determine the source of a particular piece of information • Age differences in knowledge accessibility depend on the extent to which people rely on these judgments. Social Judgment Processes • A Processing Capacity Explanation for Age Differences in Social Judgments – Declines in cognitive processing resources might impact the social judgment process. • Research suggests that we make initial snap judgments and later correct or adjust them based on more reflective thinking. • Thus, age-related changes in processing capacity might make older adults more vulnerable to social judgment biases. Social Judgments and Causal Attributions • Attributional Biases – Causal attributions • Explanations people construct to explain their behavior – Dispositional attributions • Behavioral explanations that reside within the person – Situational attributions • Behavioral explanations that reside outside the person – Correspondence bias • Relying on dispositional information and ignoring situational information Social Judgments and Causal Attributions • Attributional Biases – Research by Blanchard-Fields • Older adults are more likely to make dispositional attributions than younger adults. • The correspondence bias in older adults only occurred in negative relationship situations. – The explanations people create to account for behavior vary depending on: • The type of situation • The age of the person • Whether strong social beliefs have been violated by a person in the situation Social Judgments and Causal Attributions Motivation and Social Processing Goals • Learning Objectives – How do goals influence the way we process information, and how does this change with age? – How do emotions influence the way we process information, and how does this change with age? – How does a need for closure influence the way we process information, and how does it change with age? Motivation and Social Processing Goals • Personal Goals – Personal goals play a major role in creating direction in our lives. – Selective optimization with compensation (SOC) is an important theoretical model. • Growing older causes shift in priorities. – Re-evaluating interests – Shifting priorities means goal selection may be perceived differently by older and younger adults. – Goal selection requires that we thoughtfully choose where to invest resources. Motivation and Social Processing Goals • Emotion as a Processing Goal – Positivity Effect: Older adults avoid negative information and focus more on positive information when making decisions and judgments, and when remembering events. • Emotions may impede information processing. • Focus on positive information can interfere with decision making by causing older adults to miss important negative information. Motivation and Social Processing Goals • Cognitive Style as a Processing Goal – Cognitive Style: How we approach solving problems. – People with high need for closure cannot tolerate ambiguity and like quick answers. – It may be that limited cognitive resources and motivational differences are both age-related. – Declines in working memory may be related to need for closure. Personal Control • Learning Objectives – What is the multidimensionality of personal control? – How do assimilation and accommodation influence behavior? – What is primary and secondary control? – What is the primacy of primary control over secondary control? Personal Control • Multidimensionality of Personal Control – Personal control: the degree to which one believes that one’s performance in a situation depends on something that one personally does. – One’s sense of control depends on which domain, such as intelligence or health, is being assessed. Personal Control • Control Strategies – Brandtstädter’s (1999) three interdependent processes: • Assimilative activities – Used when one must prevent losses important to self-esteem • Accommodations – Involve readjusting one’s goals and aspirations • Immunizing mechanisms – Alter the effects of self-discrepant information Personal Control • Control Strategies (Cont.) – Heckhausen and Schulz’s view: • Primary control helps change the environment to match one’s goals. – It involves bringing the environment into line with one’s desires and goals. • Secondary control reappraises the environment in light of one’s decline in functioning. – The individual turns inward toward the self and assesses the situation. Personal Control Personal Control • Some Criticisms Regarding Primary Control – Cross-cultural perspectives challenge the notion of primacy and primary control. – In collectivist societies, the emphasis is not on individualistic strategies such as those found in primary control, but to establish interdependence with others, to be connected to them, and bound to a large social institution. Social Situations and Social Competence • Learning Objectives – What is the social facilitation of cognitive functioning? – What is collaborative cognition, and does it facilitate memory in older adults? – How does the social context influence memory performance in older adults? Social Situations and Social Competence • Collaborative Cognition – Occurs when two or more people work together to solve a cognitive task – Collaborating with others in recollection helps facilitate memory in older adults. – Findings indicate that well-acquainted older couples demonstrate an expertise to develop an adaptive pattern of recalling information. Social Situations and Social Competence • Social Context of Memory – Importantly, the social context can serve a facilitative function in older adults’ memory performance. – Thus, it is important not to limit our explanations of social cognitive change simply to cognitive processing variables, but to also include social factors. CHAPTER NINE Personality Levels of Analysis and Personality Research • Dispositional traits – Consist of aspects of personality that are consistent across different contexts and can be compared across a group along a continuum representing high and low degrees of the characteristic • Personal concerns – Consist of things that are important to people, their goals, and their major concerns in life • Life narrative – Consists of the aspects of personality that pull everything together, those integrative aspects that give a person an identity or sense of self Dispositional Traits Across Adulthood • Learning Objectives – What is the five-factor model of dispositional traits? – What happens to dispositional traits across adulthood? – What can we conclude from theory and research on dispositional traits? Dispositional Traits Across Adulthood • The Case for Stability: The Five-Factor Model – Consists of five independent dimensions of personality: • • • • • Neuroticism Extraversion Openness to experience Agreeableness Conscientiousness Dispositional Traits Across Adulthood • Neuroticism – Has six facets: • • • • • • Anxiety Hostility Self-consciousness Depression Impulsiveness Vulnerability Dispositional Traits Across Adulthood • Extraversion – Has six facets in two groups: • Interpersonal traits – Warmth – Gregariousness – Assertiveness • Temperamental traits – Activity – Excitement seeking – Positive emotions Dispositional Traits Across Adulthood • Openness to Experience – Has six areas: • • • • • • Fantasy Aesthetics Action Ideas Values Occupational choice Dispositional Traits Across Adulthood • Agreeableness (Opposite of Antagonism) – Agreeable people are not: • • • • • • • • Skeptical Mistrustful Callous Unsympathetic Stubborn Rude Skillful manipulators Aggressive go-getters Dispositional Traits Across Adulthood • Conscientiousness – Conscientious people are: • • • • • • Hardworking Ambitious Energetic Scrupulous Persevering Desirous to make something of themselves Dispositional Traits Across Adulthood • What Happens to Dispositional Traits Across Adulthood? – Costa and McCrae found: • Over a 12-year period, 10 personality traits measured by GZTS (a temperament survey) remained stable. • Other studies similar to the GZTS found equivalent • Results—however, in the very old, suspiciousness and sensitivity increased. Dispositional Traits Across Adulthood • What Happens to Dispositional Traits? (cont.) – Other studies have shown increasing evidence for personality changes as we grow older: • Ursula Staudinger and colleagues found that personality takes on two forms: – Personality Adjustment » Developmental changes in terms of their adaptive value and functionality. – Personality Growth » Ideal end states such as increased self-transcendence, wisdom, and integrity Dispositional Traits Across Adulthood • What Happens to Dispositional Traits? (cont.) – Current consensus of change in the Big Five with increasing age • Absence of neuroticism • Presence of agreeableness and conscientiousness – Studies also show decrease in openness to new experiences with increasing age. – Adjustment aspect with increasing age could be normative. – Personality changes are tied to cohort differences. Dispositional Traits Across Adulthood • Conclusions about Dispositional Traits – Personality traits tend to be stable when data are averaged over large groups of people. – But, looking at specific aspects of personality in specific kinds of people, there may be less stability and more change. Personal Concerns and Qualitative Stages in Adulthood • Learning Objectives – What are personal concerns? – What are the main elements of Jung’s theory? – What are the stages in Erikson’s theory? What types of clarifications and extensions of it have been offered?What research evidence is there to support his stages? – What are the main points and problems with theories based on life transitions? – What can we conclude about personal concerns? Personal Concerns and Qualitative Stages in Adulthood • What’s Different about Personal Concerns? – Personal concerns: • Are explicitly contextual in contrast to dispositional traits • Are narrative descriptions that rely on life circumstances • Change over time – One “has” personality traits, but “does” behaviors that are important in everyday life. Personal Concerns and Qualitative Stages in Adulthood • Jung’s Theory – Emphasizes that each aspect of a person’s personality must be in balance with all the others • Such as, introversion-extroversion and masculinityfemininity – Jung was the first theorist to discuss personality development during adulthood. • He invented the notion of midlife crisis. – Jung argues that people move toward integrating these dimensions as they age, with midlife being an especially important period. Personal Concerns and Qualitative Stages in Adulthood • Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development – Erikson was the first theorist to develop a truly lifespan theory of personality development. – His eight stages represent the eight great struggles that he believed people must undergo. – Each struggle has a certain time of ascendancy. • The epigenetic principle = Each struggle must be resolved to continue development. Personal Concerns and Qualitative Stages in Adulthood • Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development (cont.) – The sequence of Erikson’s stages are: • • • • • • • • Trust versus mistrust Autonomy versus shame and doubt Initiative versus guilt Industry versus inferiority Identity versus identity confusion Intimacy versus isolation Generativity versus stagnation Ego versus despair Personal Concerns and Qualitative Stages in Adulthood Personal Concerns and Qualitative Stages in Adulthood • Clarifications and Extensions of Erikson’s Theory: Logan – Logan argues that the eight stages are really a cycle that repeats. • trust →achievement →wholeness – Slater (2003) expands on Logan’s reasoning on the central crisis of generativity versus stagnation and includes struggles between: • • • • Pride and embarrassment Responsibility and ambivalence Career productivity and inadequacy Parenthood and self-absorption Personal Concerns and Qualitative Stages in Adulthood • Clarifications and Extensions of Erikson’s Theory: Kotre – Kotre contends that adults experience many opportunities to express generativity that are not equivalent and do not lead to a general state. • Generativity as a set of impulses • Five types of generativity: – – – – – Biological and parental Technical Cultural Agentic Communal Personal Concerns and Qualitative Stages in Adulthood • Research on Generativity – McAdams’s model shows how generativity results from: • Complex interconnections between societal and inner forces • Thus, creating a concern for the next generation and a belief in the goodness of the human enterprise Personal Concerns and Qualitative Stages in Adulthood Personal Concerns and Qualitative Stages in Adulthood • Theories Based on Life Transitions – Among the most popular theories of adult personality development – Based on the idea that adults go through a series of life transitions, or passages • However, few of these theories have substantial databases, and none are based on representative samples. – Life transitions tend to overestimate the commonality of age-linked transitions. Personal Concerns and Qualitative Stages in Adulthood • In Search of the Midlife Crisis – A key idea in life transition theories is the midlife crisis. • The idea that at middle age we take a good look at ourselves in the hopes of achieving a better understanding of who we are – Many adults face difficult issues and make behavioral changes. Personal Concerns and Qualitative Stages in Adulthood • In Search of the Midlife Crisis (cont.) – However, very little data supports the claim that all people inevitably experience a crisis in middle age. • Most middle-aged people do point to both gains and losses, positives and negatives in their lives. – This transition may be better characterized as a midlife correction. • Reevaluating ones’ roles and dreams and making the necessary corrections Personal Concerns and Qualitative Stages in Adulthood • Conclusions about Personal Concerns – Evidence supports a sharp change in personal concerns as adults age. – Change is not specific to an age but is dependent on many factors. – All agree that there is a need for more research in this area. Life Narratives, Identity, and the Self • Learning Objectives – What are the main aspects of McAdams’s life-story model? – What are the main points of Whitbourne’s identity theory? – How does self-concept come to take adult form? What is its development during adulthood? – What are possible selves? Do they show differences during adulthood? – What role does religion or spiritual support play in adult life? – What conclusions can be drawn from research using life narratives? Life Narratives, Identity, and the Self • McAdams’s Life-Story Model – Argues that people create a life story • That is, an internalized narrative with a beginning, middle, and an anticipated ending – There are seven essential features of a life story: • • • • • • • Narrative tone Image Theme Ideological setting Nuclear episodes Character An ending Life Narratives, Identity, and the Self McAdams’s Life-Story Model (cont.) • Adults are said to reformulate their life stories throughout adulthood both at the conscious and unconscious levels. – The goal is to have a life story that is: • Coherent • Credible • Open to new possibilities • Richly differentiated • Reconciling of opposite aspects of oneself • Integrated within one’s sociocultural context Life Narratives, Identity, and the Self Whitbourne's Identity Theory • Argues that people build conceptions of how their lives should proceed • They create a unified sense of their past, present, and future. – The life-span construct • People’s identity changes over time via Piaget’s concepts of assimilation and accommodation. • The life-span construct has two parts: – A scenario – A life story Life Narratives, Identity, and the Self Life Narratives, Identity, and the Self • Self-Concept and Well-Being – The organized, coherent, integrated pattern of selfperceptions that includes self-esteem and self-image • Mortimer and colleagues – A 14-year longitudinal study showed that self-concept influences the interpretation of life events. – Kegen • Self-concepts across adulthood are related to the cognitivedevelopmental level. • Proposes six stages of development which correspond to levels of cognitive development • Emphasizes that self-concept and personality does not occur in a vacuum Life Narratives, Identity, and the Self Life Narratives, Identity, and the Self • Possible Selves – Created by projecting yourself into the future and thinking about what you would like to become, and what you are afraid of becoming – Age differences have been observed in both hoped-for and feared selves: • Young adults and middle-aged adults report family issues as most important. • Middle-aged and older adults report personal issues to be most important. • Young and middle-aged adults see themselves as improving in the future, while older adults do not. Life Narratives, Identity, and the Self • Possible Selves (cont.) – Ryff identified six aspects of psychological wellbeing: • • • • • • Self-acceptance Positive relationships with others Autonomy Environmental mastery Purpose in life Personal growth Life Narratives, Identity, and the Self • Religiosity and Spiritual Support – Older adults use religion more often than any other strategy to help them cope with problems in life, including: • Pastoral care • Participating in organized and non-organized religious activities • Expressing faith in a God who cares for people – Spiritual support provides a strong influence on identity • Especially for African Americans Life Narratives, Identity, and the Self • Conclusions about Narratives, Identity, and the Self – The life-narrative approach provides a way to learn how people accomplish the integration of life into a coherent structure. – When combined with data from dispositional trait and personal concerns literatures, identity and self research provides capstone knowledge to understand what people are like.
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Running head: SOCIAL BELIEF SYSTEMS

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Social Belief Systems
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SOCIAL BELIEF SYSTEMS

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What three factors must be considered when understanding social belief systems
Belief systems are a set of principles that help people to understand and interpret what is
going on in their lives. A social belief system refers to beliefs that people in the community use
to identify themselves with. They set both the worldviews and ideals. The three factors that have
to be considered when understanding social belief systems are looking at the specific content of
the social beliefs, the strengths of the belief and possibility that the beliefs are been violated or
even questione...


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