Chap 4 Misery

8/12/2019 Chap 4 Misery

1/15

Ng, Winnie W.


2/15

Stanley Schachter (1959)- most

people would choose to join otherpeople to gain information they need

to allay their anxiety

Experiment: recruited young women

college students and explained that

hewas studying the effects of electric

shock

on human beingsNg, Winnie W.


3/15

-Two conditions:

Low- Anxiety = mild shocksHigh-Anxiety = painful shocks, but no

permanent damage

- Choice : either wait for her turn

alone or with others

- Results:In the Low-Anxiety condition: 33%

choose

to affiliate

In the High-Anxiety condition: 63%

choose

to affiliateNg, Winnie W.


4/15


5/15

Misery Loves Miserable

Company Schachter replicated the high anxiety

condition of his original experiment

Difference: manipulated the amount of

information that could be gained byaffiliating with others

Half: wait with other women who were

about

to receive shocks (similar situation)

Other half: join women who were waiting

for their advising by their professors

(dissimilar situation)Ng, Winnie W.


6/15

Schachter hypothesized: if there was

no social comparison information to beobtained, there would not be any

reason to join them

Findings:60% of the women asked to wait with

others who are facing a similar condition

No one in the dissimilar condition

expressed affiliate desires

Ng, Winnie W.


7/15

Embarrassed MiseryAvoids

Company

In some cases the fear ofembarrassment can be stronger than

the need to understand what is

happening, resulting in inhibitioninstead of affiliation

Researchers changed the Schachter-

type situation to include an element ofpublic embarrassment

Ng, Winnie W.


8/15

the investigators asked 4-6 strangers

to meet at a room labeled with a signSexual Attitudes: Please Wait

Inside.

In the fearcondition-electrical devicesand information sheets

In the ambiguouscondition- two

cardboard boxes filled with computerforms

Ng, Winnie W.


9/15

Embarrassment(Anxiety-producing)

condition-contraceptive devices,

books on sexually transmitteddiseases and pictures of naked men

and women

Observers behind a two-way mirrorwatched the group for 20 minutes,

recording 5 types of behavior:Interaction (talking)

Action (examining equipment)

Withdrawal (reading a book)

Controlled Nonreaction

EscapeNg, Winnie W.


10/15

Downward( andUpward)

SOCIAL

COMPARISON

Ng, Winnie W.


11/15

When people want to obtain

information, they select those who aresimilar to them or are likely to be

particularly well-informed

Downward Social Comparison:selecting targets who are worse off

than they are

Upward Social Comparison: when aperson compares himself to others

who are better off than himself

Ng, Winnie W.


12/15

Abraham Tessersself-evaluation

maintenance (SEM)model suggeststhat people often graciously celebrate

others accomplishments-but not when

they are bested in a domain that theyvalue greatly

In an experiment Tesser and

collegues asked elementary students

to identify the types of activities that

were personally important to them

Ng, Winnie W.


13/15

The students also identified their most

and least preferred classmate One week later, students rated their

ability, their close classmates ability

and their distant classmates ability inone area they felt was important and

in one area they felt was unimportant

Results:Important Tasks= performed superior toclose

friends

Unimportant Task=performed relativelyworse

Ng, Winnie W.


14/15

Investigators asked students to keep

track of : every single one of their interactions

to take note whether interaction

involved academic or social matters what their relationship was to the

person

and if they shared information thatwould be helpful to the other

Ng, Winnie W.


15/15

As the SEM modelsuggests:

students gave moreuseful information to

their friends wheninteractions pertained tosocial matters

In Academics, studentshelped their friends lessthan they help strangers

Ng, Winnie W.

Documents

Chap 4 Misery