Choices and Actions: The Self in Control Chapter 4 Choices and Actions: The Self in Control © 2014 Wadsworth Cengage Learning

Fact or Fiction? 1. When people are thinking about the details of an action, they are more likely to be influenced by others. 2. Individuals who feel that abilities are fixed and stable are more likely to choose challenging tasks than those who believe abilities to be changeable. 3. After we’ve set a goal, we become more optimistic thinkers than when we are setting goals. 4. When asked their most pessimistic estimate for finishing a task people are usually very accurate in their predictions. 5. People suffer less stress in a situation if they believe they can get out of it than if they believe they must remain in that situation, even if they don’t ever leave the situation. 6. When asked whether they would like to take $1000 today or $1200 in two weeks most people would choose the $1000 today. 7. Even when a new boyfriend might be nicer, more fun, and richer, women tend to stick with the boyfriend they have. 8. Keeping track of where you spend your money will not affect how you spend your money. 9. Some people actively try to fail and do things that will hurt them because they fear success. 10. Children that are able to delay gratification will be more successful in their adult life. 11. Suicide rates are higher in richer countries, in the pleasant months of the year.  

Chapter Topics What You Do, and What It Means Freedom of Action Goals, Plans, Intentions Self-Regulation Irrationality and Self-Destruction

Debate: Action & Belief Consider the story of Kim Hyun Hee, who blew up Korean Airlines Flight 858 What themes of human action does this story highlight? Which aspects of the situation contributed to Hee’s behavior? When has your behavior not matched your beliefs?

What You Do, and What It Means To understand human behavior you must understand the meaning for the behavior. Human behavior is guided by ideas and is partly dependent on meaning. Culture is a network of meaning and humans who live in culture act based on meaning. Meaning depends on language and is learned through culture. Inner processes (thoughts, feelings, and motivations) serve interpersonal functions. (Built to relate)

Thinking is Doing Imagining something makes it more likely to happen Imagining a good outcome is not has effective as imagining yourself doing all the hard work to produce the success. 18 Holes in His Mind – Major Nesmith http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WpNSImh6Z8&list=PLMTCsY2CLsf3BnYRIWmSofx3P5MXjn_Da&feature=share&index=10

Making Choices Human life is full of choices The two steps to making choices Whittle the range of choices to a few Carefully compare the remaining options

Influences on Choice Decision making Risk aversion – greater weight is given to possible losses than possible gains. Temporal discounting – the greater weight is given to the present over the future. Certainty effect – the greater weight is given to definite outcomes than to probabilities. Keeping options open – People prefer to postpone decisions rather than make them right away.

Why People don’t Choose (decision avoidance) Status quo bias Omission bias

Reactance Theory (Jack Brehm) How does reactance shape human desires? How do people react when told they can’t have something? You want the forbidden option more You need to reassert your freedom You feel aggression towards the person restricting your freedom How are people motivated to gain and preserve their choices? Teaching Tip: Students who were, or are, fans of video games are especially likely to identify with this phenomenon. Video games with an “M” rating (restricted to those over 17) are likely to be especially desirable to those under 17.

Freedom to Change Entity theory: good and bad traits are innate and permanent (people are the way they are) Incremental theory: traits can change and be improved upon (people can change) Which theory, entity or incremental, do you subscribe to? Why? Why are entity theorists more subject to learned helplessness?

Freedom of Action Do people have free will? How do external factors constrain decision-making? When are people able to make choices freely? Self-determination theory: people work better if they are intrinsically motivated What other benefits do perceived autonomy produce? Consider the panic button effect Discussion Tip: Ask students to consider how this belief in control could be used to help senior citizens or those facing health care crises.

The Social Side of Sex: Gender, Sex, and Decisions How does gender influence decisions about sex? Why are men less inhibited about sex? Error management theory – minimize the most costly type of error, yet they identify different errors Roots in evolutionary theory Temporal discounting

Goals, Plans, Intentions Ideas of some desired future state Link between values and action How are goals influenced by inner processes and cultural factors? Why is setting and pursuing goals a vital job of the self?

Setting and Pursuing Goals Setting goals Choosing among possible goals Evaluating their feasibility and desirability Pursuing goals Planning and carrying out behaviors to reach goals

Table 4.1 Mindsets and Goals

Goals, Plans, Intentions (cont’d.) How do both deliberate and automatic systems help us pursue goals? Which system helps people set goals? Which helps us resume activity after interruption? Which system reminds us of the goal when we lose our focus? How can the Zeigarnik effect explain how the two systems work together? Teaching Tip: Student may be familiar with the Zeigarnik effect but label it something like “guilty conscience.” Ask them to recall whether thoughts of studying or doing schoolwork have ever intruded when they were trying to have fun doing something else.

Hierarchy of Goals How does the hierarchy of goals help people succeed in life? Goal shielding: shutting off thoughts of other goals while pursuing a single goal How is goal shielding helpful? How can it have a negative effect?

Goals, Plans, Intentions (cont’d.) How does making plans help people accomplish goals? How can making plans be detrimental to reaching goals? Why would monthly plans be more likely to lead to success than daily plans? Teaching Tip: Chicago’s Millennium Park and Boston’s “Big Dig” project are recent examples of construction delays and cost overruns. Search local newspapers for other examples to share with your class.

Cartoon 4.3 Making daily plans is a bad idea (unless you’re a cat)

Goals, Plans, Intentions (cont’d.) Planning fallacy: the belief that your project will finish on time, even though you know most similar projects don’t How does the optimistic bias lead to planning fallacy? People plan differently for short- versus long-term goals How can you combat planning errors with your own goals?

Figure 4.2 The high cost of tickets discouraged people from buying them for an imminent concert, but cost seemed irrelevant if the concert was a year away.

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

Figure 4. 3 TOTE (Test, Operate, Test, Exit) model Figure 4.3 TOTE (Test, Operate, Test, Exit) model. The first test is a comparison of self against the standard. In the “operate phase, you try to match behavior to the standard. Test again to see if the match is close enough to reduce anxiety. If it is not close enough, keep trying. If it is close enough, stop changing behavior (exit). Teaching Tip: To test students’ understanding of the TOTE model, ask them to select a goal and then provide behavioral examples for each step.

Self-Regulation (cont’d.) Willpower can be depleted Resisting temptation uses up willpower Consider the chocolate vs. radishes experiment: Which group showed more willpower? Which group was more successful at their tasks?

Figure 4.4 People who exercised self control by eating radishes instead of chocolate gave up more easily on difficult tasks (Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Muraven, & Tice, 1998).

Food for Thought What can self-regulation theory tell us about how to succeed at dieting? Commitment to standards Set high and low level goals Monitoring Keep track of what you eat Willpower/capacity to change Decrease other demands to increase strength for dieting

Habits How do habits represent past goals? How can habits help you pursue current goals? How can habits be detrimental to achieving goals?

Self-Defeating Acts What are some examples of self-defeating behaviors? How does self-defeating behavior poke holes at traditional theories that people are rational beings? Self-defeating acts result from: Tradeoffs Faulty knowledge and strategies

Tradeoffs: Now vs. Tomorrow Inability to delay gratification is one type of self-defeating behavior Overemphasizing the present rather than the future Sight of rewards undermines self-control Ability to delay gratification as a child turned into more success as an adult In what other ways must gratification be delayed?

Suicide Is the ultimate in self-destructive behavior. It involves a tradeoff between continued suffering and immediate cessation of those feelings. Individuals who commit suicide were often highly self-aware. Suicidal people feel that they are a burden to hose around them. One theory cannot account for all suicides. Individuals have other reasons to commit suicide, such as the reasons held by suicide bombers. Fits the now-versus-future pattern Willing to trade away future to end present suffering Teaching Tips: Many of your students will have some personal experience with suicide or suicide attempts by friends, family members, or even themselves. Remind students to be especially cognizant of the feelings of others when discussing this section.

What Makes Us Human? Humans have an elaborate inner system for controlling behavior Humans think about the present and future and think about different levels of meaning. Human capacities link events in the distant past to those in the future. Humans can use complex reasoning and engage in self-regulation. Self-directed action can also have its dark side, namely irrational/self-destructive behavior

Discussion: Free Will In what ways do humans have free will? In what ways do we not? How do self-regulation and self-destructive behaviors illustrate free will or the lack thereof?

Conclusion Human behavior is guided by many factors Humans break complex tasks, such as making a choice or pursuing a goal, into smaller steps Self-regulation and self-destructive tendencies often guide human behaviors