Self-reference effect in psychology

 

The self-reference effect refers to consistent findings that people demonstrate better recall of information that is personalized.

A recent quote from Sarah Bentley and her colleagues:

People reliably encode information more effectively when it is related in some way to the self—a phenomenon known as the self-reference effect. This effect has been recognized in psychological research for almost 40 years, and its scope as a tool for investigating the self-concept is still expanding. The self-reference effect has been used within a broad range of psychological research, from cultural to neuroscientific, cognitive to clinical.  (Bentley et al., 2017)

Examples

Creating pin numbers and passwords based on one's personal history of dates and events.

Remembering the name of a person's you just met because you have a family member with the same name or you create a personal connection with the name.

Cite this post

Sutton, G. W. (2023, September 26). Self-reference effect in psychology. Psychology Concepts and Theories. Retrieved from https://suttonpsychology.blogspot.com/2023/09/self-reference-effect-in-psychology.html

Reference

Bentley, S. V., Greenaway, K. H., & Haslam, S. A. (2017). An online paradigm for exploring the self-reference effect. PLoS ONE, 12(5), Article e0176611. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0176611

Geoffrey W. Sutton, PhD is Emeritus Professor of Psychology. He retired from a clinical practice and was credentialed in clinical neuropsychology and psychopharmacology. His website is  www.suttong.com

 

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Overconfidence effect in psychology

 

The overconfidence effect is a cognitive bias granting a much higher level of confidence to one's judgments than is supported by observable evidence. Overconfidence is also referred to a miscalibrated judgemental confidence (Dunning et al., 1990).

Dunning and others (1990) provided evidence that people are generally overconfident. 

The effects of overconfidence may be as trivial as losing at a game or small wager. Of course, the effects can be substantial when the overconfident person makes judgements that influence their nation at war or a major investment of their company's resources.

Types of Overconfidence

Researchers have suggested there are different types of overconfidence. For a review, see Moore and Healy (2008).

Overestimation is a widely studied type of overconfidence in which people overestimate their abilities, how well they performed, their degree of control over an outcome, or their odds of success in business. Bregu (2020) summarized two findings regarding overconfidence and trading. Overconfidence was linked to "higher trading volume and weakly damages profits." People overestimate the value of their houses, vehicles, and net worth.

Overprecision is a persistent finding that people are biased toward certainty in their decisions such as clinical diagnoses and financial trading (Haran et al., 2023). When asked to add a confidence interval to a quantifiable estimate, people generally create a much smaller range than is reasonable. For example, students and professionals offer over precise deadlines.

Overplacement is the belief that one is better than others or better than average. Overplacement can lead to experiences of rejection when seeking entry to highly competitive educational, sports, or career paths.

In their review paper, Moore and Healy (2008) offer a useful perspective on "the trouble with overconfidence."

Our theory, in brief, is this: People often have imperfect information about their own performances, abilities, or chance of success. However, they have even worse information about others. As a result, people’s estimates of themselves are regressive, and their estimates of others are even more regressive. Consequently, when performance is high, people will underestimate their own performances, underestimate others even more so, and thus believe that they are better than others. When performance is low, people will overestimate themselves, overestimate others even more so, and thus believe that they are worse than others. (p. 503)

Overconfidence and Religion

Li (2023) noted that cueing God concepts promotes feelings of safety. In a series of studies, Li found that the relationship between activated God concepts led to overconfidence and was mediated by a sense of security.

Religious scholar, Peter Enns, captured one type of religious overconfidence in his aptly titled book, The Sin of Certainty.

An example of overprecision is the occasional Christian leader who has announced the precise time of Jesus' return to the earth.

References

Bregu, K. (2020). Overconfidence and (Over)Trading: The effect of feedback on trading behavior. Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, 88. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socec.2020.101598

Dunning, D., Griffin, D. W., Milojkovic, J. D., & Ross, L. (1990). The overconfidence effect in social prediction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58(4), 568–581. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.58.4.568

Haran, U., Moore, D. A., & Morewedge, C. K. (2010). A simple remedy for overprecision in judgment. Judgment and Decision Making, 5(7), 467–476. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1930297500001637

Li, H. (2023). Let god judge between me and thee: Activating god-related concepts increases overconfidence in Chinese han and bai people. International Journal for the Psychology of Religion. https://doi.org/10.1080/10508619.2023.2168935

Moore, D. A., & Healy, P. J. (2008). The trouble with overconfidence. Psychological Review, 115(2), 502–517. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.115.2.502

Geoffrey W. Sutton, PhD is Emeritus Professor of Psychology. He retired from a clinical practice and was credentialed in clinical neuropsychology and psychopharmacology. His website is  www.suttong.com

 

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False Fame Effect in Psychology

The false fame effect is a mistaken identification of a person as famous because the name had been seen before.

The false name effect is a memory attribution error known as a source-monitoring error. That is, the source of the memory is wrongly attributed to an incorrect source.

Related Reference

Jacoby, L. L., Woloshyn, V., & Kelley, C. (1989). Becoming famous without being recognized: Unconscious influences of memory produced by dividing attention. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 118(2), 115–125. https://doi.org/10.1037/0096-3445.118.2.115

Geoffrey W. Sutton, PhD is Emeritus Professor of Psychology. He retired from a clinical practice and was credentialed in clinical neuropsychology and psychopharmacology. His website is  www.suttong.com

 

See Geoffrey Sutton’s books on   AMAZON       or  GOOGLE STORE

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Einstellung effect in psychology

 

Mindset x Geoffrey Sutton & DALL.E 2023

The Einstellung effect is a cognitive psychology phenomenon in which a person's pre-existing mental model or mindset can hinder their ability to find a better or more efficient solution to a problem. This can occur even when a simpler or more effective solution is readily available. The term Einstellung comes from the German word meaning "attitude" or "approach."

The effect was first described in the 1940s by psychologists Abraham Luchins and Edith Luchins, who conducted a series of experiments in which participants were asked to solve a series of water jar problems. The problems all had a simple solution, but participants were taught a complex formula to solve the first few problems. When presented with later problems that could be solved more easily with a simpler approach, participants continued to use the complex formula, even though it was unnecessary and less efficient.

One explanation for the Einstellung effect is that it occurs due to a process called mental set, which is the tendency to rely on familiar strategies and problem-solving methods even when they are not the most appropriate or efficient. The mental set can be particularly strong when people are under time pressure or when they feel a sense of urgency to solve a problem quickly.

Although the Einstellung effect has been widely studied in the field of psychology, there has been some criticism of the concept. Some researchers argue that the effect may be less pronounced than originally thought, or that it may be influenced by individual differences in cognitive styles and problem-solving approaches. Others argue that the concept is too broad and may not be applicable to all types of problem-solving situations.

The Einstellung effect suggests ways in which cognitive biases and preconceptions can interfere with problem-solving processes. By being aware of this effect, individuals can be more mindful of their problem-solving approaches and more open to new and potentially more effective solutions.

References

Luchins, A. S., & Luchins, E. H. (1942). Mechanization in problem solving: The effect of Einstellung. Psychological Monographs, 54(6), i-95.

 

Geoffrey W. Sutton, PhD is Emeritus Professor of Psychology. He retired from a clinical practice and was credentialed in clinical neuropsychology and psychopharmacology. His website is  www.suttong.com

 

See Geoffrey Sutton’s books on   AMAZON       or  GOOGLE STORE

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Dr. Sutton’s posts are for educational purposes only. See a licensed mental health provider for diagnoses, treatment, and consultation.

 

cocktail party effect in psychology

 

The cocktail party effect refers to the phenomenon in which people are able to selectively attend to one specific auditory stimulus while filtering out other background noises in a noisy environment, such as at a party. This ability to selectively attend to a particular stimulus while ignoring other stimuli is a crucial aspect of everyday communication and social interaction.

One classic study on the cocktail party effect was conducted by Cherry (1953), who presented participants with two different spoken messages played simultaneously in different ears, while they were instructed to attend to one message and ignore the other. Participants were able to accurately report the content of the message they were attending to, but were generally unable to report the content of the unattended message.

However, some researchers have criticized the idea of the cocktail party effect as being oversimplified and overly dependent on laboratory settings. In particular, some have argued that in real-world situations, attentional selection may not be as effective or consistent as it is in laboratory settings (e.g., Mack & Rock, 1998). Additionally, some studies have suggested that visual cues and contextual information may play a larger role in selective attention than previously thought (e.g., Murphy et al., 2015).Top of Form

Overall, while the cocktail party effect remains an important concept in the field of psychology, further research is needed to better understand the complexities of selective attention in real-world environments.

References

Cherry, E. C. (1953). Some experiments on the recognition of speech, with one and with two ears. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 25(5), 975-979.

Mack, A., & Rock, I. (1998). Inattentional blindness: Perception without attention. In H. Pashler (Ed.), Attention (pp. 117-134). Psychology Press.

Murphy, D., Brownell, H., & Pisoni, D. (2015). The effects of talker variability on perceptual learning of dialects. Journal of Phonetics, 50, 46-59.

 

 

perpetual beta in psychology

Perpetual beta as a psychology concept refers to decision-making processes that allow for constant updating as new information becomes available.

The perpetual beta approach contrasts with creating a prediction model illustrating the relationship among the variables as a one-time stable model.

The beta concept is taken from computer software products that release software in a beta or testing phase then update the software based on feedback.

The psychology concept is attributed to Tetlock and Gardner.

Possible applications

The application to a wide range of businesses is obvious as they need to be concerned about providing viable products and services in the future.

Clinicians may find the concept useful in helping individuals update their modes of interacting with people or dealing with life situations. In a sense, we all have working models about how to deal with people and events but we may not be analysing and using new information to determine how well our ideas are working.

Reference

Tetlock, P. E., & Gardner, D. (2016). Superforecasting: The art and science of prediction. Random House.

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mere exposure effect

In psychological science, the mere exposure effect is the increased preference people show for something that appears familiar because they have repeatedly encountered the stimulus.

The mere exposure effect began as a hypothesis and was tested by assessing the positive emotional response to words. Words that were more frequent were much preferred over less frequently occuring words. 

First impressions matter. The strongest effects were found for the early repetitions. The effect declined over time.

Research supporting the mere exposure effect is credited to University of Michigan psychologist, Robert A. Zajonc (1968).

The mere exposure effect is evident in music and art preferences. Repeated exposure to new music or art works increases their desirability.

Advertisers rely on the mere exposure effect when they repeatedly present a brand name in various venues.

Cite this post

Sutton, G. W. (2022). Mere exposure effect. Sutton Psychology. Retrieved from https://suttonpsychology.blogspot.com/2022/05/mere-exposure-effect.html

Reference

Zajonc, R. B. (1968). Attitudinal effects of mere exposure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 9(2) part 2, 1-27.

First instinct fallacy

The first instinct fallacy is a belief that one should act on their first impression. 

Several studies indicated that students would do better on tests if they did not rely on their first instinct (Kruger et al., 2005). However, Couchman and his team (2016) found that confidence is a factor.

Coachman et al. (2016) suggest that the first answer on a test serves as an anchor, which creates a cognitive bias toward keeping the original answer. By recording a confidence rating with the answer, students have another piece of evidence to consider when reviewing their work.

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Justin Kruger and his colleagues found support for the first instinct fallacy in an oft quoted article from 2005. Following is their summary of results.

[Most people believe that they should avoid changing their answer when taking multiple-choice tests. Virtually all research on this topic, however, has suggested that this strategy is ill-founded: Most answer changes are from incorrect to correct, and people who change their answers usually improve their test scores. Why do people believe in this strategy if the data so strongly refute it? The authors argue that the belief is in part a product of counterfactual thinking. Changing an answer when one should have stuck with one’s original answer leads to more “if only . . .” self-recriminations than does sticking with one’s first instinct when one should have switched. As a consequence, instances of the former are more memorable than instances of the latter. This differential availability provides individuals with compelling (albeit illusory) personal evidence for the wisdom of always following their 1st instinct, with suboptimal test scores the result.]

_____

Justin Couchman and his team (2016) found that changing an answer or sticking with a first impression can both lead to correct answers. The outcome varies with the level of confidence students have in their response.

In the study, students provided their level of confidence and whether or not they changed their answers.

Here's a quote from their article( page 180).

[Should you ever revise your original choice, and if so, when? In both studies, there was a clear and consistent trend: On items that caused the most uncertainty, initial instincts were correct  less than half the time, general beliefs and post-exam assessments did not accurately reflect performance, but real-time metacognitive ratings did. Our data support the idea that – after a choice has been made and time has passed – people should consider revising answers when their recorded confidence in their initial answer was low, but not when confidence in their initial answer was high.]

The recommendation based on Couchman et al. (2016) would be to consider changing the low confidence answers.

_____

References

Couchman, J. J., Miller, N. E., Zmuda, S. J., Feather, K., & Schwartzmeyer, T. (2016). The instinct fallacy: The metacognition of answering and revising during college exams. Metacognition and Learning, 11(2), 171–185. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11409-015-9140-8

Kruger J, Wirtz D, & Miller DT. (2005). Counterfactual thinking and the first instinct fallacy. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88(5),725-35. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.88.5.725.

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Illusory Truth Effect

 

The illusory truth effect is the persistent finding that simply repeating a statement can increase a person's belief that the statement is true.

The effect occurs in young children and adults (Fazio et al., 2020).

Only two repetitions are needed to create the illusion of truth although increases in the frequency of repetition indicate an increase in the perception of truth.

This illusory truth effect helps account for the sharing of fake news (See Vellani et al. 2023)

It seems, fake stories must be extreme for people to recognize them as false.

As a cognitive phenomenon, the illusory truth effect is primarily associated with C (Cognition) in the SCOPES model of functioning.

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Politicians and other leaders can take advantage of the illusory truth effect to shape public opinion.

Anyone may use the illusory truth effect when they repeat exaggerated stories or poorly supported opinions.

Businesses can use the illusory truth effect to sell their product by using repeated marketing phrases.

Psychology of Religion hypothesis: Clergy and religious leaders encourage congregants to repeat statements of faith. Religious songs (hymns, choruses) may also contain statements of faith that are considered inaccurate even by conservative scholars. The diversity of congregations (such as Christian denominations) hold different beliefs about what is a truthful belief that separates them from similar groups. This diversity of belief may be partly explained by the repetition of the statements that define their view of the truth.

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RESEARCH NOTES

Lisa Fazio and her colleagues (2020) studied the effect of repetitions in children (ages 5 and 10) and adults and found the illusory truth effect in all age groups.

Fazio, L. K., & Sherry, C. L. (2020). The Effect of Repetition on Truth Judgments Across Development. Psychological Science, 31(9), 1150–1160. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797620939534 

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Hassan and Barber (2021) studied the truth effect in two experiments that tested more repetitions of statements than did previous researchers. In one experiment, the participants saw up to 9 repetitions of statements and in another experiment, they saw up to 27 repetitions. The illusion of truth effect was supported in both studies. More repetitions led to a greater perception of truth for repeated statements compared to new ones. A clarification of the effect was evident on analysis of the data. The largest increase in perceived truthfulness occurred on the second time. After that, the size of the effect decreased. 

Hassan, A., Barber, S.J. The effects of repetition frequency on the illusory truth effect. Cogn. Research 6, 38 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1186/s41235-021-00301-5

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Valentina Vellani and others (2023) found that people were more likely to share repeated misinformation on social media than they were to share misinformation that was only presented once. The sharing was related to perceived accuracy of a statement linked to the bias produced by repetition.

Vellani, V., Zheng, S., Ercelik, D., & Sharot, T. (2023). The illusory truth effect leads to the spread of misinformation. Cognition, 236, 105421. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2023.105421

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For a resource summarizing the illusory truth effect and other cognitive phenomena, see Daniel Schachter's book, The Seven Sins of Memory

  

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Dunning Kruger effect

The Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias evident when people markedly overestimate their abilities or competencies compared to those of their peers or their scores on assessments.

Low performers exhibit poor judgment of their own knowledge, skills, and competencies as well as those of other people.

In other studies, the scientists found highly competent people underestimating their knowledge, abilities, and competencies.

But there have been criticisms of the Dunning-Kruger (DK) effect.

As with most findings in science, there have been challenges to the conclusions drawn by Dunning and Kruger. For example, in 2022 Magnus and Peresetsky noted that metacognitive psychological explanations may not be needed. They refer to the statistical phenomenon of regression to the mean (described by Francis Galton in 1886). In addition, the authors point out the role of boundary values. That is, if you score 97% on a test, you are close to 100% so the only prediction for future performance is likely a bit lower. Similarly, those who score near zero percent may be likely to predict at least some improvement in the future.

Magnus and Presetsky (2022) conducted a study. Following is their conclusion.

In this article, we have attempted to provide an explanation of the DK effect which does not require any psychological explanation. By specifying a simple statistical model which explicitly takes the (random) boundary constraints into account, we achieve a near-perfect fit, thus demonstrating that the DK effect is a statistical artifact. In other words: there is an effect, but it does not reflect human nature.

In their final paragraph, Magnus and Presetsky (2022) offer a suggestion about the belief in psychological explanations.

Perhaps the explanation for the persistence of this belief is: We have two facts, both true. First, we actually observe the DK effect. Second, if we compare people's ideas about their own ability with objective measurements of this ability, we find that people tend to overestimate themselves. Then, what is more natural than to think that these two statements are related to each other, in fact, that one causes the other? The problem is, they aren't.

Reference

Kruger, J., & Dunning, D. (1999). Unskilled and unaware of it: How difficulties in recognizing one's own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77(6), 1121–1134. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.77.6.1121

Magnus, J. R., & Peresetsky, A. A. (2022). A Statistical Explanation of the Dunning-Kruger Effect. Frontiers in psychology, 13, 840180. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.840180

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stereotypical bias

 

Stereotypical bias is the tendency to view people and objects in general ways based on various sources of information about people and things.

A reliance on stereotypes can lead to prejudicial behavior toward specific people who appear to be in the same class or group as the stereotype.

Stereotype bias can lead to false identification.

Racial stereotypes have been particular damaging leading to judgments of guilt by association with the stereotype rather than guilt based on observed behavior.

Stereotypical bias affects what people remember. Recalled information can fit a congruity bias. That is, people may recall features based on the stereotypes they hold. A witness may describe a person based on the stereotype of people from a particular race or ethnic group.

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egocentric bias

 Egocentric bias is a tendency to recall information about oneself in more detail than other information. In general, the recall tends to treat oneself in a positive light but for some, the recall can reflect unwarranted negative views of the self.

In couples conflicts, each person tends to recall more details from their personal point of view, which can increase the conflict about events.

The tendency to recall positive self-characteristics yields "positive illusions" and can lead to inflated self-worth. Researchers find people select positive personality traits to describe themselves more than would be expected based on average findings. Along similar lines, negative characteristics and failures are attributed to others or forces outside oneself.

Divorce research indicates a tendency to increase self-enhancing memory biases.

Self-enhancing recall of past difficulties can exaggerate the difficulties.

A favorable view of oneself may lead to exaggerating how bad one was in the past.

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