Unit 3 notes

Unit 1 Exam: 45-55 was A, My score: 48

Unit 2 Exam: 41-55 is A, My Score: 44
Determinants of Success in the College Student
I. Reasons to study
A. Theoretical- Critical periods
a. Remember that psych is about 120 years old. Over these 120 years,
up until the 1970s, developmental psych was mostly concerned
with young children. So child psych and adolescent psych were
most important and was what developmental psych was. Then
there was a push for researching the elderly, from cradle to grave,
post retirement people. Then in the 90s psych came back to the
middle. Understanding college students became important. Graph
example: on bottom is age, on side is level of sophistication. It
goes up exponentially. So older we get, the more sophisticated we
become. Obviously. Also another example shows a jagged
incremental change, so dramatic shift in sophistication, and then a
slower shift, then something else happens, and there is a dramatic
shift again, etc. People cause the dramatic ones critical periods.
This could be the first time we speak. Or the first time we form
emotional bond with someone not in family. Because friends are
important factors in our lives. Must choose between what our
friends say you should do and what mom says is right. Puberty.
Depression rates after retirement go up. Its a very difficult time of
adjustment.
b. Define college students: Not someone who just signed up for a
random course. People just like us, trying to get college degree.
i. Why College students
People in our place have many intellectual challenges
that must be faced. Future careers, how to prepare,
etc.
Philosophy of life matters that need to be addressed in
a more serious way then before. Like before might
want to be lawyer because uncle is lawyer, but now
decide to do something else that makes you happy.
Become a lawyer or social worker?
Also, may be less controlled by parents, so new
freedom. Lots of opportunities for growith, etc.
Then social issues-dating, sexuality, etc. All of this is
more intense then ever before.
ii. The cost of making mistake goes up. Marrying wrong
person is big mistake.
B. Applied- Failure rates
a. Do a test to see how students change from freshman year to
graduation. Also, how the perception of them has changed to their
parents, themselves, and their friends. In this experiment, a lot of
the college students drop from the study, or their friends or family
stops replying to person doing the test. People graduate in different
rates also. Only 50% graduate in 4 years. College is not always
what a person thinks its going to be.
II. Academic achievement in College
A. Nature of concerns: As you go further in college concerns grow. So
seniors and juniors are more worried about their grades then freshman
because they are worried about jobs, etc. Also more concerned with
abilities and learning.
B. Methodology
a. Started off at university of Michigan. Tried to figure out why some
students are successful in college while some arent.
b. Hypothesis: one important factor: intelligence
III. General Intelligence
A. Distribution of intelligence: Intelligence tests are normally bell shaped. Iq
scores on bottom, and frequency of that IQ in population on Y axis. Most
frequent obtained is 100, so its the mean. 101 and 99 arent second most.
102 and 98 after that, etc. 70 is mental retardation. 140 is genius. In this
room, mean is probably about 120. Which is 85
th
percentile! So smart
group of people. Another example. If looking at sat score/act/iq on bottom
and GPA on Y axis. Then it will be scatter plot with distinct pattern going
up (positive correlation). So intelligence I highly correlated with GPA.
Person all the way on the top is perfect sat/act/iq and perfect GPA. He is
what statisticians would call an outlier. Intelligence is a necessary but not
sufficient condition for success at a university. Necessary because an
average intelligence person will struggle at a school like UIUC. Not
sufficient, because everyone else is smart also.
IV. Confidence and self doubt.
i. Successful students are happy with their school and getting good
grades while moving through the curriculum. Unsuccessful
students are not getting good grades or arent happy with their
education.
A. The need for confidence and doubt
a. The successful students attend to and learn from the feeback they
receive. If they do bad on a test, they take that as evidence of doing
bad, and they recover and do better later. The students knowing
they can do well if they apply themselves balance the fear and
anxiety. The unsuccessful students have the following proplems:
B. Common dysfunctional strategies
1. Overconfidence
a. Person always thinks it someone elses fault.
If they get a bad grade they blame it on the
instructor. To little self doubt.
2. Self- Handicapping
a. People have had great success in the past,
but they are afraid that they wont be able to
duplicate the success in the future. People
may arrange it so if they succeed in the
future, they can take the success. But if they
fail, they make it so they dont have to take
credit for the failure. Sometimes this
decreases the chances of success. Example:
Students who have great academic success
in past but not self handicap. Got a class that
you stay up for all night studying for. If you
get a good grade, you can stay you stayed up
all night and did well. But if you do bad, you
can say that you were too tired, and thats
why you failed.
3. Defensive Pessimism
a. Often do the best in the short term but get
into trouble in the long term. Professors love
these people because they are great students.
Usually exaggerate everything that is
negative about themselves. They may
believe that they are not smart enough, even
if its not true and its contradicted by reality.
They may even set 3 alarms a night. Or take
notes 2 times. May end up dropping out in
the end because of the stress they put on
themselves. Intelligence Is necessary, not
sufficient!
V. How successful and unsuccessful student differ
A.Using time
a.Whether or not they are willing to go to class





Successful Students Unsuccessful Students
Sometimes absent 8% 8%
Always or almost always 84% 47%
In class
Often absent 8% 45%

Most unsucceful students still go to class on a regular basis! So going to class is
necessary but not sufficient condition for success.
i. The unsuccessful students sometimes spend just as much time
studying and doing work, but they dont spend it wisely. So less
efficient. Successful students are better at breaking up a lot of
work into small manageable chunks.
b. Mass or space learning. Mass would read 8 hours the night before.
The space would read 1 hr every night. More benefit per unit of
time since the space will do better. The more time you read
something, the more associations you make and the better you can
recall the information.
c. Successful students will drop out the low priority items when they
realize they cant do everything they want. If they play soccer every
Wednesday, they will stop one week if they have an exam to study
for. Unsucceful will do homework problems for another class the
night before an exam because they think they wont have time to
study well anyways.
d. Successful students will focus on one thing at a time. They will set
goals for themselves for how much work they want to get done a
C. (B)Reading Strategies
a. Newspaper is make easy to read. Everything is organized.
Different type of material takes different reading strategies. Novels
are easy to read. History books are a little worse but still not
terrible. Sociology or psychology is a little slower, but still not too
bad. The things like biology and math are very difficult to read.
One experiment had people read their textbook online, and a
computer recorded their speed. Successful students read at a more
variable rate, speed up and slow down. Sometimes they even go
backwards. Successful students are reading and they slow down
when they dont understand something. Or they go back a page if
they dont understand. Unsuccessful students dont monitor their
own progression, they just keep reading even if they dont
understand. Reading speeds are much more variable for successful
students compared to unsuccessful students. The more you know
about something, the easier it is to learn more about it. Lesser you
know the harder to learn. Rich get richer, poor get poorer.
b. Experiment: Experimenter tells you to read something (the story
about laundry thats in the textbook!) and asks you to tell them
what you read. You would do really bad unless they tell you the
title of the passage is washing clothes. Remember much more if
know the context. Mental context is important.
c. Treat reading as and active task, not passive. The most effective
reading strategy: SQ3R- survey, question, read, recite, review. This
establishes a useful mental context as quickly as possible. Survey:
read the summary portion, try to get a feel for what its about.
Question: try to figure out what may be addressed in the reading.
Read: obviously, eventually you need to ACTIVELY read the
material. Recite: Try to put what you just learned into your own
words. It is very important to put what you think you just learned
into your own words. Review: what are the major points in the
reading and the overall organization of the material. Best way to
study is not to memorize, but understand the material and how
everything relates.
D. (C) Note taking skills
a. One of the least effective ways to get information, is through
lecture. Lectures are awful for learning new material. Why? 1. The
audience has no control over pace of material, we take what we
get. Unlike a textbook. 2. The audience cant see the big picture
until we get to the end. We cant survey through the material, like
with a textbook.
b. Some guidelines:
i. Take notes, they are useful even if you never read them
again. An experiment tested this. People took notes, then
turned them in so they couldnt study them. BUT, the
people who took the notes still did better than the people
who did not, even though they couldnt use their notes to
study with. Notes force you to put what you are learning
into your own words. Dont take notes on everything. Just
concentrate on the main points and how they fit together.
ii. Graph: the note taking group does better than the non-
note taking group. People who took notes can
discriminate between the important and non-important
stuff.
iii. The retention curve: There is a dramatic degree of
forgetting in the first 9 hours, and then it flattens out. You
may remember as much 10 days later as 9 hours after.
E. (D) Testwisenss
a. There are things that are non academic thing s that effect how we
learn. Budgeting time is very important during an exam. Know
how much time you can afford to spend on each question. We
know what we know, and we know what we dont know.
b. When taking a multiple choice exam, a good strategy is to treat the
question as an open ended question. This is good because many of
the alternatives will be plausible. So you will start leaning towards
the wrong answer. Experiment: machine can determine when a
student put one answer, erased it, and put something else.
Conclusion: 58% changed the wrong answer to right answer. 20%
changed from right to wrong answer. AKA every mcb exam. 22%
of the time, the person changed a wrong answer to another wrong
answer. You are 3 times more likely to change an incorrect answer
to a correct answer than vise versa.
c. Essay exams: it is crucial that you use your time well. Sometimes
its best to start with the questions you know best. Make sure you
answer all questions and be concise.
d. Some disciplines have technical chagrin. Should you use that
jargon? Yes, if you know it well, because professors get off on it.
But no if you dont, because professors hate that.
Now everything in the rest of the class is linked together
I. Three aspects of Human Existence
A. Cognition: Thinking broadly conceived: Self Concept
B. Affect: Emotional life broadly conceive: Self esteem
C. Conation: A pre disposition to act a particular way
(behavior). Rational vs irrational. : Self Presentation
Exam: the basic tricotamist division of human nature: we are
thinking feeling and behavioral creatures. Thinking=self
concept. Affective=feeling of self. Behavioral=sefl
presentation or how we present ourselves. Most psychologists
today have adopted this theory and applied it to the study of
social self. Also, psychologists today would differ from
philosophers in one way: most philospphers said the 3 systems
are independent systems because they obey different scientific
laws. Psychologists suggest they are all interdependent. The
psychologists will show the 3 concepts in a triangle because
how you feel about yourself depends on what you are thinking
and doing. Just think about this.
II. Self concept
A. Defintion: refers to the total set of beliefs we have about ourselves.
Physical characteristics, demographic characteristics, political ideals, total
set of beliefs, and psychological characteristics. One thing to remember is
that we are not born with these beliefs, we develop them. We observe our
on behavior and then make that part of our self concept. Also monitor our
thoughts and feelings by noticing what makes us happy, sad, anxious, etc.
Also, we watch to see how people respond to us. Another important part
of definition: B=f(PE) behavior= function of person and situation
(environment). Situations are important because no matter the personality,
people act differently in different situations. Usually people see us in a
narrow situation. Example: Tuesdays and Thursday at 3. So since behavior
is a function of situation, people think they understand us well, but they
dont. We underestimate the variability in other peoples behavior. One of
the functions of dating is getting to see the other person in a wider range
of situations. When two get married, add their ages together, the lower the
number is the more likely the marriage will end in divorce. 2 people who
date for shorter time also are more prone to divorce. One more thing about
the definition. Self concept is very multifaceted because there are
thousands of beliefs we have about ourselves. Which beliefs will be in
consciousness? The things that distinguish you from the people in the
immediate social environment will be in consciousness. Black students on
a white campus will be much more race conscious. White student on black
campus will be more race conscious. One final thing, most people believe
that what really defines them is not how they behave but what they think
and how they feel. Experiment: put two people in a room and have them
talk and transcribe what they say. Then ask each person how important it
is that they said something about themselves to the other person to
understand them well. When about thoughts it was high. When about
feelings, medium. When about behaviors, low.
B. Action Identification: the same behavior can be thought of at different
levels of abstraction, and the level that you choose is very important.
Example: In the library on the floor reading textbook and professor comes
up behind you and says what are you doing. You could say reading a
sentence or trying to get through this module 23 or im trying to get
through this module or im trying to pass this exam, and I need to read 4
modules and. These are all true but they are on different levels. As
something is thought of at a higher and higher level of abstraction, its
more closely tied to the self concept. Cant go through life reading
sentences, you must realize that there is more going on, realize that you
are reading to pass class. So cant think at lowest level of abstraction, must
think at a higher level to motivate self and give meaning to things. Cant go
through life thinking of everything at the highest level either, because you
would become too anxious. Too low=no meaning Too high=anxiety,
devastation
C. Over justification: When we do something we do it for internal reasons
and external reasons. Intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. Teach
because rewards of teaching and because of the money. More intrinsic the
less extrinsic you need. More extrinsic the less intrinsic you need. If too
many extrinsic rewards, the person may think they are doing the activity
only for the money, then you lose the intrinsic awards. If kids arent given
an award, they will do an activity like coloring more. If given an
unexpected reward, they will do the activity more next time. If given an
expected award, like the researcher says you can do anything you want but
if you play with markers ill give you the candy bar. Kid will do it then get
candy bar. Next time around, the kids will play a lot less with the markers.
Why? Because when you tell kid that you will give them an award, it
makes the kid think that they are playing with the marker to get an award
so it must not be fun. You can take an intrinsically rewarding activity (like
magic markers) and if you give too many extrinsic award, you will destroy
the intrinsic enjoyment of the task. Art critics think that paintings painted
for commission as lower quality then paintings done for fun.
D. Social Comparison: olympics: Gold=1
st
silver=2
nd
bronze=3
rd

a. The experiment: took pictures of the faces of the winners on the
stand and asked others who looks the happiest. The silver medal
winners are usually the happiest. The second most is bronze,
because they are happy they even placed. The bronze compare
themselves to people under them who didnt even win. The silver
medal winner is happy because they were so close to winning.
They compare themselves upwards to the gold winner. The only
thing that matters is how you compare to others. THIS IS ALL
WRONG LOOK AT b.
b. Extra information mentioned next day (maybe on exam): Gold
winners were happiest. Second were bronze. Least happy were
silver. Silver is unhappy because they are comparing to the gold
and they worked so hard to get to where they are but they didnt
win. They are comparing themselves upwards, which usually leads
to disappointment. The bronze is comparing to all the people who
didnt win medals. So he is comparing downwards.
E. Self complexity: how many distinctions within themselves does a person
make. High complexity if makes a lot, low self complexity if makes a few.
Example: if do bad on exam, then low complexity, think low of yourself-
that you are dumb, have no friends,etc. But if high complexity and flunk
the exam: everything else is still positive, still think we have friends. The
affect of the bad things is confined to a small part of self (like maybe not
that smart) instead of all over self (relationships, sports, intelligence, etc).
Self complexity can protect us from the neg things that can happen in life.
III. Self esteem
A. Definition: Peoples positive and negative evaluations of themselves. Not
just what you think you are, but if you think thats good or bad. This
fluctuates day by day. Self concept is constant. General positivity bias:
asks people to rate themselves through 10. If do this to large group of
people, the mean would be 6 or 7, not 5. Most people like themselves.
This is why mean is not 5. Compared to other people, how much do we
like ourselves, we like ourselves more than we think other people like
themselves. Sometimes this can be constant. Like when crazy people think
they are god. Found another person who thinks they are god. Put both in
same room. They argue a lot about who is god. But, for most of us there is
combination of postive or negative evaluations.
B. Self-perpetuation nature
a. Rich get richer. If you start with high level of self esteem, life style
will increase self esteem. People with high self esteem are healthly,
successful, adaptive, etc. They can go with the flow. The problem
of low self esteem: low SE---- nagative expectations--------high
anxiety/low effort-----failure----self blame------low self esteem-----
(circle)
C. Self Discrepancy
a. A lot of these studies done with college students. Given blank
piece of paper and told to describe self as honestly as possible. Get
multiple self-representations:
1. Actual: what they say. This is actual self. The next 4
are possible selves. They are mental representations.
2. Own ought: my own representation of what I should
be doing if I am a good student, friends, child, etc.
3. Others ought: My idea of what the most important
people in my life think I should be doing.
4. Own ideal: what I would be like if I was perfect.
What I hope to be, what I dream to be.
5. Others ideal: what we think others want us to be to
be perfect.
ii. The researchers can look at discrepancies between all
these:
Discrepencey between actual self and -emotional result- clinical result (this is the form
that the next few lines follow)
Own ought- agitation, self-criticism, guilt- Anxiety disorder
Others ought- agitation, feal, shame- Anxiety disorder
Own ideal- dejection, dissapointment, lack of fulfillment-Depression
Others ideal- dejection, anticipation of rejection, lack of pride-depression 2 things
that affect this:
1.Amount of the discrepancy: As the size gets bigger, the intensity of the emotions gets
greater.
2. Accessibility or the degree to which we are aware of the discrepancies.
D. Self Awareness: The degree of focusing attention on feelings, etc, highly self aware.
Lot of studies. One study: Beeper study. When beeper goes off person has to write
something in notebook. Usually they write behavioral thing, cognitive thing, and feeling
thing. Now days we do this with blackberrys, etc. In this study, several hundred
participants ages 15-92 from 7:30 am to 10:30 pm. Only 8% of the time did people think
of themselves. They were least hapy when they thought of themselves. This is because
when we think about ourselves, we usually think of our discrepancies. We think about
what we are doing and what we should be doing. We experiene negative emotions. When
we become aware of the discrepancies and we are confident that we can get rid of them
or reduce them, that generally produces a change in behavior. We get more confident.
But when we become aware of the discrepancies, and we are not confident that we can
eliminate the discrepancies, we try to take our mind off the discrepancies.
1. Awareness and reactions to discrepancies: usually not good for us
2. Flow experiences: directing all of almost all of our resources outwards produces an
enjoyable psychological stage.
Graph: Level of skill on bottom, degree of challenge on y. Linear line going up.
More intense enjoyement on top, mild enjoyment on bottom. On left of line going up is
anxiety, on right is boredom. Think about this!!!
Sometimes the activity is so enjoyable, that money does not matter. Lack of self
awareness is enjoyable.
3. Choking under pressure. NBA playoffs from 1967-1992. Games 1-4, the home team
wins 70% of time. Game 7: home team wins only 30%. Free throw percentage: games 1-
4 is equal for both teams. In game 7, the home team shoots a lower percentage. They
choke! Oh, like the cavs. Same stuff with baseball.
Self Presentation
I. A few basics
A. Defintions: Actor does actions and audience observes and formulates an
opinon about actor. Audience doesnt take actions for face value because
they know actor may not be being real. Good definiton: refers to the
display of social behaviors that establish, maintain, or refine the
impression other people have about us.
B. Nature of strategies: sometimes its conscious, sometimes its unconscious.
When we say something, it may be accurate, a total fabrication, or
somewhere in the middle. The rich man takes the subway to know that he
can take it incase he ever has to. He doesnt want to think of himself as
someone who is scared to take the subway, or thinks he is above it.
C. Goffman: sociological approach.. Explained why our behavior differs so
much. Sometimes we play metaphorical roles. Sometimes we play
dependent child with some people, we convey that we want to be taken
care of. Or autonomous child: rebellious. We ask what we should do, then
do opposite. Trying to convey that we are independent.
D. Importance of believability. 2 reasons. 1. If the images we project to other
people are not perceived are accurate, people will think we are diluted,
liers, etc. We will accept a little exaggeration. But it must be
fundamentally accurate or we are perceived as manipulative, etc. 2. Most
people find it very anxiety inducing when they act not genuine. We dont
like to act in fraudulent ways.
E. Goal: To influence others. Most of the time self presentation is positive,
because we want other people to like us. But this isnt always the case.
Sometimes people dont want to be perceieved as likeable, they want to be
perceived as intimidating, etc. Sometimes people may want to be
perceived as unlikeable, like if they want to get out of doing a certain job.
So most of the time positive, but can be negative. Test question: primary
goal is not to be perceived positively, but to influence other people to
respond to us in the way we want them to respond to us.
II. Underlying Motives
A. Strategic Self-presentation: efforts to shape peoples perception of us in
particular ways.
B. Self-verification: Desire that other people understand me the same way I
understand me, and when this is true I am happy.
III. Strategic self-presentation
A. Norms
1. Modesty: dilemma: we usually want people to
perceive us in a good way, but this norm of modesty
makes it so we cant be to self centered. maybe if
someone doesnt know something good about
yourself, you try to tell them indirectly. Like take
someone to your office to see your trophy. So
downplay if someone knows, and up play if
someone doesnt know while trying to appear
modest,
2. S-P matching norms
a. Positivity: we should match the positivitys
of another utterances to our positives.
Example: someone tells you that they didnt
think they won a grant, but they did. So you
tell them that you thought you failed a test,
but you got a B. This is equal so its fair. But
what if someone tells you that their dad is in
the hospital, you dont want to talk about
your exam that you did well on. This doesnt
match!! But it would be fair if you tell a
story about how your dad almost died a few
years ago.
b. Depth of disclosure: We must match the
intimacy of anothers utterance. Like if
someone tells us about how his or her dad is
in the hopital, we want to match with an
equal story. Not ask about sports.
3. Consistency norm: we are expected to act in ways
that are at least a little consistent to our ideals. It
would be inappropriate if teacher walks in one day
and talks about the greatness of republicans, and
then the next day talks about how great democrats
are. People who are not viewed as at least
reasonably consistent are seen at best as unreliable,
hypocritical, manipulative, and diluted or even
mentally unstable.
4. Norm of Civil Attention: people should be mentally
involved when someone tells them something. You
should look them in the eye and show that you care
about what they are saying.
5. Norm of civil inattention: it is inappropriate to get
in an elevator and get in peoples business. So
people look around and act like they dont care
whats going on.
B. Nature of goals
a. Power. Acting a certain way to appeal to certain people. Like
politician acting like a hunter.
b. Influence. Couple talks about buying a car. Husband buys
magazine and acts like automobile expert so that when they
actually decide to buy a car, he can act like know everything about
cars. Waiter acting like he knows a lot so people buy the wine that
he recommends.
c. Sympathy. We need to be careful in the way we do things, because
sometimes we want sympathy in a non obvious way.
d. Approval. Sometimes a wife will pay partly in credit card and
partly in cash so their husband cant see how much the total cost
was. We try to convey aspects of who we are in subtle ways.
C. Common tactics.
a. Ingratiation. Telling other people compliments so they compliment
us back
b. Self-promotion. Sometimes we want to convey our achievements
in subtle way.
c. Basking in respective glory. Experiment. Went to colleges around
countries. Every time a student came to class not wearing school
colors they clicked and kept track of how many people wore colors
and how many didnt. Did in on Monday in fall so they could tell if
more people wore colors if team won or lost. Students are much
more likely to wear colors on Monday following a win. Basking in
the glory! We want to associate ourselves with winners and
distance ourselves from losers so non of their bad stuff rubs off on
us. If team wins and asked about game on Monday, college kids
talk about team in we format. Use they if lost.
d. Excuses. Instances in which we convey to another that we did
something wrong but we have a reason to not be punished even
though we know we deserve it.
D. Necessity of an active private-self
1. Children. Private sense of self doesnt develop in
children until 2 or 3. So they dont engage in any of
this self presentation stuff. They are what they are,
they are innocent. That is why they are so much fun.
2. Alcohol. People who are intoxicated dont really
care what others think.