Chapter 4 (Unit 2) - Constructing Social Experience

Question 1

1- Making meaning of our relationship interactions

Answer 1

• Many of our social experiences are ambiguous and subject to multiple
  interpretations
  – Is my girlfriend laughing at her ex’s jokes because it’s a party and she’s just
  being friendly, or is she still hung up on him?
  – Is the cute stranger I’m chatting up flirting back or are they just being
  polite/friendly?
  – Is he taking a long time to text back because he’s busy, or because he doesn’t
  want to talk to me?
  – Is my partner giving me unsolicited advice because he loves me and wants to
  help, or because he thinks I can’t handle things on my own?
  – Are they really too tired to have sex, or are they no longer attracted to me?
• Because the same perception can support
  many different interpretations, couples
  often disagree about the meaning of an
  event, even when they agree about what
  has specifically occurred
  – This is often what makes relationships
  challenging

Question 2

2- What are attributions?

Answer 2

Attributions: explanations we make to understand causes of an event
Ex: “my partner bought me flowers
because…
…we had a fight”
…he loves me”
…he is a loving partner”

• There are two important dimensions to the explanations we make
• Locus dimension: is the cause of the behaviour internal or external to the
  person?
• Stability dimension: is the cause of he behaviour temporary or stable?
• These often go hand-in-hand (e.g., internal causes are more likely to be
  stable), but not necessarily
  Ex:
  YOUR PARTNER IS LATE FOR DINNER
  ”He’s late because he’s a
  thoughtless jerk”
  Internal & stable attribution
  ”He’s late because he forgot to
  set his alarm”
  Internal & temporary
  attribution
  ”He’s late because he got
  stuck in traffic”
  External and temporary
  ”He’s late because the stupid
  car keeps breaking down”
  External and stable

Question 3

3- What are relationship-enhancing attributions? What are distress-maintaining attributions?

Answer 3

Relationship-enhancing attributions:
Seeing positive behaviours as internal and stable
‘‘He always knows just what to get me—he is so thoughtful!’’
INSTEAD OF
‘‘He got them from someone at work and is just regifting them to me’’
Seeing negative behaviours as external and temporary
‘‘She must have had a bad day at work’’
INSTEAD OF
‘‘She is such an irritable person’’

Distress-maintaining attributions:
Seeing positive behaviours as external and temporary
‘‘He got them from someone at work and is just regifting them to me’’
INSTEAD OF
‘‘He always knows just what to get me—he is so thoughtful!’’
Seeing negative behaviours as internal and stable
‘‘She is such an irritable person’’
INSTEAD OF
‘‘She must have had a bad day at work’’

• Satisfied couples tend to make relationship-enhancing attributions (Fincham
  & Leary, 1983; Jacobson et al., 1985)
• Distressed couples tend to make distress-maintaining attributions
• The pattern of attributions partners make also predicts which couples are
  likely to stay happy and together over time (Bradbury & Fincham, 1991)

HOWEVER…
* Relationship enhancing attributions can cause people to excuse important
problems (McNulty, O’Mara, & Karney, 2008).
* Benevolent attributions are beneficial when facing relatively minor problems
(e.g., partner leaves their socks on the floor)
* …harmful when facing more severe problems
(e.g., partner drinks too much)
* Attributions should be somewhat accurate!

Question 4

4- Hierarchy of Beliefs

Answer 4

• Neff & Karney (2005): beliefs about partner and relationship organized
  hierarchically
  – At the bottom: concrete, specific observations (ex: Listens to me complain about work)
  – Mid-range: beliefs about partner’s enduring qualities (Ex: Good listener, supportive)
  – Top: global feelings about partner and relationship (Wonderful, I love my partner)

See example

Integrating observations:
* Any new observation can be connected to existing knowledge in several ways
– As a stand-alone detail with no connection to more general beliefs
‘‘He must feel like playing a video game’’
– As a sign of enduring qualities of the relationship or the partner
‘‘He sure loves to play video games’’
– As an indicator of the quality of the relationship as a whole
‘‘His obsession with video games is threatening the relationship’’

Question 5

5- What influences the attributions we make? Explain perceptual confirmation.

Answer 5

• The explanations we make for an event (attributions) shape our
  interpretation of the event (construal), which in turn affects our behaviour
• But what influences our attributions and construals?
• In any given interaction, bring our pre-existing knowledge of what:
  – Our partner is like
  – What people are like in general
  – What relationships are like

SCHEMAS
* Schemas = mental frameworks or cognitive structures that helps make sense
of our complex world
– Streamline information processing by providing an organizational structure
where we can slot new information
– Guide perception
– Allow us to make predictions (i.e., includes expectancies)

EXPECTANCY CONFIRMATION
* Schemas can be updated with new information, but also tend to be self-perpetuating
* Expectancies tend to be confirmed through two pathways:
1) Perceptual confirmation: “we see what we expect to see”
2) Behavioral confirmation: “we behave in a way that makes our expectations
happen”

PERCEPTUAL CONFIRMATION

REJECTION SENSITIVITY
* Rejection sensitivity: disposition (individual tendency) to “anxiously expect,
readily perceive, and overreact to rejection” (Downey & Feldman, 1996)
– High RS: people who anxiously expect rejection
– Low RS: people who calmly expect acceptance
* Repeated experiences of rejection lead to formation of rejection expectancies
* These expectancies are activated in situations where rejection is possible
* Once activated, increase readiness to perceive rejection
RS MEASURE
(DOWNEY & FELDMAN, 1996)
* Lists variety of interpersonal
situations where rejection is
possible and assesses responses
along two dimensions:
– Degree of anxiety & concern
about the outcome
– Expectations of acceptance &
rejection
– Score for each situation
calculated by weighting
expected likelihood by degree
of concern
PERCEPTUAL CONFIRMATION
* For individuals high in RS, rejection-related cues more likely to capture
attention (attentional bias) (Berenson et al., 2009)
EMOTIONAL STROOP TASK
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* Ps asked to process one aspect of a stimulus (i.e., naming the ink colour a
word is printed in) while ignoring an irrelevant aspect of the stimulus (the
content of the word)
* Content of the word: rejection-related (e.g., ignored, unwanted), non-rejection
negative (e.g., accident, disaster), neutral (e.g., pavement, radiator)
* If Ps take longer to name ink colour for rejection-related word relative to
neutral word, suggests attentional bias towards rejection-related words
RESULTS
* RS associated with slower response time on rejection-related word trials
(controlling for response on neutral trials)
– I.e., greater interference on rejection-related word trials = greater attentional
bias towards rejection-related cues
* No such association between RS and response time on negative trials
– Consequently, does not suggest general tendency to pay more attention to
negative stimuli
MORE EVIDENCE OF PERCEPTUAL
CONFIRMATION IN RS
* RS individuals more likely to construe ambiguous social behaviour of a stranger as
rejecting (Downey & Feldman, 1996)
– Experiment involves two “get to know you” interactions with another
“participant”
* After first interaction, told 1 of 2 things:
– “Amy did not want to continue with second part of experiment” (ambiguous)
– “There is not enough time for the second interaction”
* Rejection sensitivity linked to greater feelings of rejection in ambiguous condition
* Also more likely to construe insensitive
behaviour of new partners as
intentionally rejecting (i.e., attribute
behaviour to hurtful intent)
– E.g., “If your boyfriend or girlfriend
was being cool and distant, you
would feel he or she was being
intentionally hurtful to you”

Question 6

6- What influences the attributions we make? Explain behavioural confirmation.

Answer 6

BEHAVIOURAL CONFIRMATION

• People who expect rejection tend to behave in ways that elicit rejection from
  close others (self-fulfilling prophecy) (Downey et al., 1998)
• College-age (mostly) heterosexual couples in exclusive relationships
  – Asked to select up to 5 topics of ongoing conflict (e.g., ”commitment”, “sex”,
  “spending time together” from list and indicate most salient issue
  – Assigned to discuss mutually agreed upon issue for 20 min
  – Completed measure of affect pre- and post-interaction (RS was assessed on
  separate day)
  – Behaviour during interaction coded by independent observers
• High RS women displayed more negative
  behaviours (e.g., hostile tone, put-down,
  denial of responsibility) during
  interaction than low RS women
• Partners of HRS women angrier about
  the relationship following discussion
  relative to partners of LRS women
• Women’s negative behaviour accounted
  for 54% of the effect of women’s RS on
  their partner’ change in anger
• No effect observed for male partners in this study
  – But, in other research (Downey & Feldman, 1996):
• Lower levels of relationship satisfaction in female partners of men high in
  RS explained by these men’s jealous & controlling behaviour
• In male partners of women high in RS: by hostility & diminished support

WHY DO THEY BEHAVE LIKE THAT?
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* HRS & LRS women similar in hostility when not primed by rejection cues
* Possible explanation: partner selection
– But controlled for a number of partner & relationship variables
* Possibly a behavioural manifestation of feelings of hurt, anger, frustration,
hopelessness

RELATIONAL IMPACT OF SELF-DOUBTS
* Individuals with low self-esteem also have chronic concerns about
acceptance
* See themselves negatively & believe that others do too
– Naïve realism = idea that one’s perception of the world is an accurate
representation of reality
– SE does not predict objective features like attractiveness
* May defend against relationship anxieties triggered by self-doubts by
devaluing the relationship

MURRAY, HOLMES, MACDONALD, &
ELLSWORTH, 1998
* Ps completed completed purported measure of intelligence
* Three conditions: failure feedback, success feedback, neutral (no feedback)
* For low SE individuals, self-doubts about intellectual abilities triggered:
– Anxieties about partner rejection, lower confidence in partner’s regard
– Lower valuation of the relationship, derogation of the partner
– Lowered confidence in partner’s regard mediated negative impact of failure
manipulation on relationship devaluation
* Opposite pattern for high SE individuals

Question 7

7- Summing up expectancy confirmation

Answer 7

• Helps understand why many of us find ourselves experiencing the same
  relationship dynamics over and over again
  – “Wherever you go, there you are”
• Often not aware of this
  – Recall the fundamental attribution error:
• Tendency to underestimate situational influences & overestimate
  dispositional influences on the behaviour of others
  – Don’t realize that, in our relationship interactions, WE are often the situation

Question 8

8- What is motivated cognition?

Answer 8

MOTIVATED COGNITION
* Interpretations are shaped not only by what we think but also by what we
want
* Motivated cognition: the ways in which our motives and desires shape how
we select, interpret, and organize information, with the aim of achieving some
desired outcome (Kunda, 1990)
* Motive = drive to reach a specific goal
* Bias = tendency to process information in a systematic way that reaches or protects a certain point of view
* Our motive to believe certain things about
our partner & the relationship can lead to
biases in how we perceive our partner &
the relationship
* Helps explain why outsiders sometimes
evaluate a relationship very differently
from its participants
* Recall that we strive to maintain consistency between our thoughts, beliefs, &actions (e.g., cognitive dissonance theory)
* Few relationships are perfect and some degree of doubt & conflict is
inevitable
* How to resolve the tension between our desire for certainty and consistency
and these inevitable doubts?
* Make cognitive adjustments

Question 9

9- Motivated cognition: enhancement bias / positive illusions

Answer 9

• In committed relationships, motivated to see our partner & the relationship in
  a positive light
• This leads to an enhancement bias = processing information in a way that
  casts our partner/relationship in a positive light
• Manifests in a number positive illusions about the partner and relationship

POSITIVE ILLUSIONS
(MURRAY & HOLMES, 1999)
* Satisfied partners tend to idealize their partners
(Murray, Holmes, & Griffin, 1996)
– See partners more positively than the partners perceive themselves
– Can’t be explained by partners being modest
(Murray, Holmes, & Griffin, 2000)
- Happy spouses rate partners more positively than their friends do

• Elevate relational virtues and minimize faults
• Ascribe special significance to relationship virtues
  ‘‘I don’t think I will ever have to doubt his love for me for me because he
  is always making me feel good about myself’’
• Use “yes, but” arguments to minimize faults
  ‘‘Yes, he tends to over-react to things…
  But, I have realized that he does this to protect me’’
• Tend to believe that one’s own relationship is better than the relationships of other people (Rusbult et al., 2000)
• MacDonald & Ross, 1999
  – Asked relationship partners, as well as their friends and family to predict
  whether couple will still be together in 1 year
  – Partners were more optimistic and less accurate than friends and family
  (despite having access to much more insider information!)

BENEFITS OF POSITIVE ILLUSIONS
* Related to increased relationship satisfaction & stability (e.g., Murray et al.,
1999)
* Giving benefit of the doubt makes for smoother interactions
* Makes partner feel good and more secure
* Recall self-fulfilling prophecy à our partners may come to “live up” to our
idealized image of them

HOWEVER…
* Are positive illusions always beneficial?
* Depends on how unrealistic illusions are (Neff & Karney, 2005)
* Minor illusions smooth social interaction, major illusions minimize problems
* Partners may feel pressure to ”live up to ideals”

Question 10

10- Motivated cognition: justification motive / self-serving bias

Answer 10

Not all motivated cognition is about relationship enhancement
* Also want to hold favourable attitudes about ourselves (justification motive)
* In a clearly troubled relationship can still uplift ourselves by blaming the
partner for faltering relationship
* Self-serving bias = tendency to make internal attributions for our positive
behavior, external for our negative behavior

SELF-SERVING BIAS IN
RELATIONSHIPS
* Can occur even in happy relationships
* Don’t want to believe that we could cause our partner pain or distress
– Deflect responsibility by blaming the situation or blaming the partner

Why?

DYADIC NATURE OF RELATIONSHIP
INTERACTION
* Generally, two people involved in relationship interactions & both susceptible
to self-serving biases
* Additional wrinkle: actor-observer difference
– Degree to which you are oriented towards the person vs. the situation
depends on whether you’re engaged in the action yourself (you’re the
actor) or if you’re just observing someone else (you’re the observer)
– Actors more likely to make situational attributions, while observers more
likely to make dispositional attributions
– Again, don’t realize that we’re part of the situation for our partner

MEMORY BIAS
* Autobiographical memory is not like a
video recording
* Rather, a constructive process
– Pieces of remembered information +
current knowledge = narrative that
makes sense to us now
– Can leave out or amplify information to
support our current view of the partner
& relationship (memory bias)
MCFARLAND & ROSS, 1987
* Couples asked to rate partner’s personality & relationship
– Do it again two months later; ratings compared
* Memories of past feelings guided by current feelings about the relationship
– If satisfaction improved: remember feeling more positively than they
actually did
– If satisfaction declined: remember feeling more negatively than they
actually did

Question 11

11- Summary

Answer 11

• It’s tempting to think we are objective observers of our social world
• In reality, we actively construct our social reality
  – Pay attention to some things and not others
  – Select one interpretation over possible others (attributions, construals)
  – Remember some things and not others
• This construction process is shaped by
  – Our prior knowledge and expectations
  – Our desires and motivations
• Something we will return to throughout the course