Chapter 4 - Behavior Control

1. Chapter 4 - Behavior Control • What You Do, and What It Means • Freedom and Choice • Self-Regulation • Irrationality and Self-Destruction

2. Behavior Control • Korean Air Lines Flight 858 - Kim Hyun Hee • Themes about human behavior • Influence of values and culture • Trust and obedience of cultural leader • Working as a team • Planned action, focus on details, and goals at different levels • Quest for good backfired

3. What You Do, and What It Means • Human actions are based on meaning • Meaning is learned by culture • Thinking allows you to make use of meaning • Perform action mentally before physically • Imaging something makes it more likely to happen

4. Levels of Meaning • “By” test to differentiate level of meaning • Higher levels - more meaningful • Focus on lower levels to solve problems • Higher level may invoke guilt; lower level focuses on details of operation

5. Changing Meaning • Focus on low level of meaning • More vulnerable to influence and change views • Focus on high level of meaning • Change behavior by shifting to a low level and then back to high level of meaning

6. Different Meanings, Same Level • Entity theorists • Enjoy doing things at which they succeed • Learned helplessness • Incremental theorists • Enjoy learning, challenges • Strive to improve performance

7. Goals, Plans, Intentions • Goals • Ideas of some desired future state • Link between values and action • Goals are influenced by inner processes and cultural factors • Setting and pursuing goals is a vital job of the self

8. Goals, Plans, Intentions • Setting goals • Choosing among possible goals • Evaluating their feasibility and desirability • Pursuing goals • Planning and carrying out behaviors to reach goals

9. Goals, Plans, Intentions • Mindsets of setting and pursuing goals differ • Setting goals – realistic • Pursuing goals – optimistic • Goals help individuals resume an activity after interruption

10. Goals, Plans, Intentions • Conscious and automatic systems help pursue goals • Conscious system helps set goals; resume activity after interruption; devise alternative plans • Automatic system reminds us of the goal • Zeigarnik effect

11. Goals, Plans, Intentions • Interlinked, hierarchy of goals • Distal and proximal goals • Planning • Focus attention on reaching goal • Specific guidelines on what to do • Motivate people to work on goals

13. Goals, Plans, Intentions • Plans that are too detailed or rigid can be discouraging • Plans tend to be overly optimistic • Overly optimistic plans • Planning fallacy • Future versus short term plans

15. Freedom and Choice

16. Freedom of Action • More or Less Free • Sometimes constrained by external factors • Other times can freely choose • Self-determination theory • Perceived freedom produces benefits • Panic button effect

17. Making Choices • Two Steps to making choices • Whittle the range of choices to limited few • Carefully compare the remaining options

18. Influences on Choice • Risk aversion • Temporal discounting • Certainty effect • Keeping options open • Status quo bias • Omission bias

19. Is Bad Stronger Than Good?Avoiding Losses Versus Pursuing Gains • Bad outcome of losing has a stronger effect than the good outcome of winning • More willing to take a gamble versus a certain loss • People are influenced more by what they stand to lose than what they stand to gain.

20. The Social Side of Sex Gender, Sex, and Decisions • Genders based decision to pursue sex on different factors • Error management theory • Roots in evolutionary theory • Temporal discounting • Men’s mind-set emphasizes the present and discounts the future

21. Reactance Theory • ‘Reverse psychology’ • Consequences • Makes you want the forbidden option more • Reasserting your freedom • Aggression toward person restricting your freedom • People are motivated to gain and preserve their choices

22. Self-Regulation • Effective self-regulation relies on • Standards – ideas of how things could be • Monitoring – keeping track of behaviors • Capacity to change – aligning behavior with standards

24. Undermining Monitoring • Dieting • Eat more while watching television • Eating binges – lose track of monitoring • Alcohol intoxication • Reduces attention to self • Difficult to self-regulate

25. Self-Regulation • Capacity to change – Willpower • Willpower can be depleted • Resisting temptation uses up willpower • With practice, can be strengthened

26. Food for Thought Dieting as Self-Regulation • Self-regulation principles for effective dieting • Commitment to standards • High and low level goals • Monitoring • Keeping track of what you eat • Willpower/Capacity to change • Decrease other demands to increase strength for dieting

27. Irrationality and Self-Destruction

28. Self-Defeating Acts • Paradoxical • Rational beings acting irrationally • People almost never directly seek failure, suffering or misfortune • Self-defeating acts result from • Tradeoffs • Faulty knowledge and strategies

29. Self-Defeating Acts • Self-defeating Tradeoffs • Frequent when reward is immediate; cost delayed • Self-handicapping • Faulty knowledge and strategies • “I do my best work under pressure”

30. Tradeoffs - Now Versus Tomorrow:Delay of Gratification • Self-defeating behaviors • Overemphasize the present rather than the future • Capacity to delay gratification • Seeing what you wants stimulates greater desire for it • Resist temptations by avoiding the sight or thought of it

31. Life’s Temptations PLAYVIDEO

32. Suicide • Extreme irrational, self-destructive behavior • Often involves tradeoffs • Fits the now-versus-future pattern • Willing to trade away future to end present suffering

33. What Makes Us Human? • Humans have an elaborate inner system for controlling behavior • Make choices in novel ways • Link here-and-now with distant realities • Use complex reasoning processes • Better developed self-regulation • Capacity for self-destructive behavior