Lecture 11: Social & Physical Environments Flashcards Preview

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Flashcards in Lecture 11: Social & Physical Environments Deck (33)
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1
Q

What makes up the social environment?

A
  • People are interconnected: Choices, Opportunities, Constraints, Society, Kevin bacon started linking charities to celebrities. Clear links to well being.
2
Q

What is prosocial behaviour?

A
  • A general term
  • Includes anything that increases another’s well being: Cooperation, Helping, Sharing
  • Does not need to be ‘altruistic’*
  • Doesn’t have to be something that wont benefit you or even something that won’t benefit you more. We use altruism when it isnt clear whether there’s a benefit to the self, or when the benefit to self is not part of the calculation. But this term gets stretched
3
Q

What does evolution have to say about altruism?

A
  • Kin altruism (are nicer/give your resources to those you are genetically related to, which helps your genes because your relatives shares your genes)
  • Reciprocal altruism (I scratch your back you scratch mine, doesn’t have to be conscious). Those who were cooperative survived better.
  • Competitive altruism: Helping people with nothing in return, increases social status, makes you attractive to possible mates, displays your wealth and power
4
Q

What is the mechanism for altruism / prosociality?

A
  • Empathy may be the mechanism (we take the perspective of another person)
  • Empathy altruism hypothesis: articulates this view: people sometimes help without regard to personal costs and benefits, and this happens when they have empathetic concern for a person in need
  • May seem selfish (favour passing on your own genes) The ultimate evolutionary goal (increasing genes in future generations) is distinct from the immediate experience (feeling empathy and helping)
5
Q

In terms of social dilemmas, where is there some conflict?

A
  • Immediate personal growth
  • Collective well being
  • Cooperation is best (for group)
  • But possible to ‘cheat’ to personal advantage
  • But if everyone cheats, no good or depletion
6
Q

What are the two kinds of social dilemmas?

A
  • Common resource dilemma: some good already exists and people can draw from that good; they are called ‘take
    some’ dilemmas. Most natural resources (e.g., pastures, water, oil, fish) fit this description, as do most environmental issues. .) As long as people take from a common pool at a sustainable rate, there is no problem. However, a dilemma arises when individuals are tempted to take more. If too many over-harvest the resource, it vanishes—we see the tragedy of the commons.
  • Public good dilemmas: are about creating a benefit that does not yet exist; some people contribute resources to create a good that benefits everyone, regardless of individuals’ contribution levels. Public goods dilemmas are thus called ‘give some’ dilemmas (e.g., libraries, bridges, and charity programs) With public goods dilemmas, there is a delay between contributing and reaping the benefit. the ‘free rider’ problem; for any one individual, it seems irrational to contribute to a public good when it is possible to enjoy the benefits without contributing. Of course, if everyone thinks this way, the good will not exist—hence the dilemma.
7
Q

How do you solve a social dilemma?

A

Features of Dilemma:

  • Cooperation higher when framed as an Ethical decision vs. business frame; community vs. private
  • Certainty (amount available or needed- More cooperation when people know exactly how much)
  • Repeated interactions, experience (More cooperation when it is repeated with same people)

Features of situation:

  • Communication
  • Group size (the more people that are involved, the less cooperative people are)
  • Social norms (what is common? What do you expect other people do? What have other people done? If its normal to cooperate you don’t want to be the one jerk who isn’t)
  • In group vs. out group
  • Building trust; using generosity (responding with some generosity encourages reciprocation)
8
Q

What is intuitive prosociality?

A
  • Could prosocial behaviour/preference be automatic or intuitive, at least sometimes
  • (as opposed to reflection and self control)
9
Q

Describe the correlational and manipulated studies used to measure intuitive prosociality

A
  • Correlational: First, they measured how fast participants made their decisions about whether
    to keep or donate, and they found that faster decisions were associated with higher contributions to the common pool. This suggests that the quick impulse was to give, whereas the more deliberative (slower) choices yielded less giving to the common pool
  • Manipulated: A second approach forced people to make decisions either in less than 10 seconds, or only after 10 seconds had elapsed. randomly assigning people to be fast or slow, as opposed to just measuring what they did naturally. Results were similar: fast decisions were more cooperative than slow decisions
  • In a third approach, participants were randomly assigned to four groups and asked to write a paragraph about a time when instinct led to a good or bad
    decision, or how careful reasoning lead to a good or bad outcome. The idea was that writing these paragraphs would prime people to think about the relative value of following first instincts versus careful reasoning. The results were that priming the benefits of instinct produced more cooperative choices (i.e., giving to the common pool), whereas priming the benefits of deliberation produced more selfish choices.
10
Q

What are some caveats of the research on intuitive prosociality?

A
  • These findings have not always replicated
  • Timing is tricky (is it about intuition or not understanding?). Failure to understand, indecision.
  • Experience matters? (online ‘workers’). The more times people have played public goods games, the more liekly they are to make a selfish choice
  • Yet demonstrated in other ways. Similar, improved tasks. More broadly (neuroscience, development etc.)
11
Q

What are the neuroscience correlates for intuitive prosociality?

A
  • Generally associated with reward seeking: Ventral striatum and ventromedial prefrontal cortex
  • Generally associated with cognitive control: Lateral prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex
  • Across a variety of tasks—such as donating money, seeing other people receive rewards, and cooperating with other people—brain imaging studies find greater activation in the reward-associated areas
  • Activation in the self-control areas is typically not associated with prosocial behaviours. Based on these brain activation patterns, we can infer that these prosocial acts have more to do with reward-seeking
12
Q

What evidence does early development show for intuitive prosociality?

A
  • Prosocial behaviour in young is significant
  • Little delay of gratification or executive control has developed. Yet before 2 years e.g., Preference for prosocial actors, Helping without request, Offering useful information
13
Q

What does emotions research show us about prosociality?

A
  • Helping produces pleasure. Recall ‘giving to monkey’ study. Prosocial spending –> Seems pleasurable to be prosocial doesn’t seem to be an act of self control. ‘acts of kindness’ exercises
  • And, emotions can nudge towards prosocial behaviour. Awe (make us feel small and do good things for others), Gratitude and Elevation/ inspiration.
14
Q

What is E.O. Wilson’s biophilia hypothesis?

A
  • Innate need to affiliate with other living or ‘lifelike’ things (biophilia)
15
Q

What is the suggestive evidence for the biophilia hypothesis?

A
  • Empirical benefits of nature
  • Windowless office workers seek plants and pictures
  • Biological preparedness (very easy to make people afraid of natural elements, conversely we might be drawn to some of the lifegiving ones)
16
Q

Why might we have an innate need for nature?

A
  • Reasonable person model (rooted in attention restoration theory). Humans have ‘informational needs’. Intense focus (or boredom) are fatiguing, when people become mentally fatigued, they perform poorly and behave less reasonably. All of this to say, people need a change of pace to restore cognitive functioning and natural environments are often the restorative ‘the sweet spot’ (not too overwhelming, or boring, just the right amount of information- a soft fascination). Built environments can be too.
  • Stress reduction theory (focuses less on cognitive processes)
17
Q

Does living near greenspace appear to be associated with benefits?

A
  • Canadian students (Ages 11-16) across 300 schools
  • Living near greener areas, 10,000 uk residents (tracked change over time to see if moving effected happiness. living near greenspace was associated with higher life
    satisfaction and lower distress )
    -Gallup world poll and environmental quality (positively correlated with SWB- this representative sample of planet Earth finds that reports of environmental quality and
    protection are associated with higher life satisfaction and enjoyment)
18
Q

Describe the observational studies that studied moments in nature

A

-Another recent study tracked 150 American children with GPS and then used Google Street View and a computer program to literally count the green pixels representing the spaces children encountered in their daily travels. More greenspace was again associated with better
moods.

19
Q

What did the Ottawa satisfaction experiments find?

A
  • Ppl more satisfied w/ Ottawa when reminded of natural spaces rather than nice built spaces
20
Q

What is the relationship between nature and happiness?

A
  • Reminding people of nature (photos) prompts satisfaction
  • Exposing people to nature short experiments
  • Consistent boosts in positive emotions
  • Walking studies in Ottawa, Ann Arbor, Palo Alto, Regina etc. with nearby nature
  • More than expected (forecasting error; difference in happiness between walking through tunnels vs. walking outside)
  • Sitting still; even in winter (regina)
  • Virtual nature works, but smaller effect
21
Q

How might nature be good for you, beyond happiness?

A
  • Cognitive fatigue (as in RPM)
  • Creativity (nature may enhance creativity)
  • Pain and recovery time
  • Cardiovascular health (more trees associated with better health, 10 trees is the equivalent to feeling 7 years younger)
  • Mortality (in greener neighbours ppl live longer, buffer against low SES effects on health)
22
Q

What are the community benefits of nature?

A
  • Less aggression & crime (property and violent)
  • Lower levels of crime around greenspace form police reports
  • Having greenspace was associated with lower self reports of aggression
  • More social activity
  • More cooperation, perhaps sustainability
  • Plants and generosity
  • Fishing study (common dilemma)
  • Kids at forest vs. museum (responded in more cooperative ways after being at the forest school)
23
Q

What is nature relatedness?

A
  • A person’s affective, cognitive & physical relationship with nature; or nurtured biophilia
24
Q

What are the correlates of nature relatedness?

A
  • Time spent outdoors & ‘in nature’ (through ESM methods)
  • Participating in environmental organizations
  • Environmental attitude measures (nature relatedness is yet a unique predictor of sustainability over above environmental attitudes)
  • Subjective & psychological well being
  • Pro-sociality (measure of social value orientation, humanitarianism)
25
Q

What are the different nature related/exposure Positive psychology interventions?

A
  • Mindful walks (cf. shinrin yoku, forest bathing). Mood , relatedness, health & physiology.
  • Suzuki 30 x 30. 30 minutes for 30 days (no control group). Boosts relatedness, SWB, sustainability
  • Passmore’s 2 week intervention studies. Photography & savouring (take a photo of nature and engage with it). Boosts in mood, relatedness, pro sociality
26
Q

What are some reasons for caution?

A
  • Threatening or disgusting nature is unpleasant
  • Defining nature is tricky (what is nature vs. what isn’t)
  • Compared to what (i.e., control group) ?Regardless, it cannot be an exact match
  • Lack of randomized controlled trials (beyond mood boosts)
  • General pervasiveness of publication bias in social/medical science. Few nature opponents to correct the record.
27
Q

How much time do people spend inside?

A
  • Most people spend >90% of time indoors (Residence, work/school, public spaces)
28
Q

What are built environments like?

A
  • Environmental health research has emphasized fixing noxious things (E.g., noise, smells/pollutants, light, temperature)
  • A positive approach could emphasize optimal environments
  • Tricky to balance: person (individual differences), space, task. E.g., lighting studies: personal control, Time of day & light colour, Open office plans (Cost, flexibility, natural light, Concentration vs. sociality (mood and creativity)
29
Q

What is biophillic design?

A
  • Using nature or natural elements in built environments (need not be ‘intentional’)
  • Natural materials
  • Natural forms & representations
  • Fractal geometry (to have repeating patterns of self-similarity at different scales)
  • Prospect and refuge
  • May foster well being of inhabitants
30
Q

What are virtual environments

A
  • Issues of overly broad questions, measurement, effect sizes, publication bias
  • Using IRL social psychology principles. Active social engagement vs. social comparison. New connections vs. competing with offline life. If they allow you to make new connections this might be for the best, e.g., people with extreme social anxiety may benefit from internet. However, if your online life starts hindering social connections and interfering with your offline life then it may be bad.
  • Costs and benefits of smart phones
31
Q

What is a social dilemma?

A

situations where individuals must choose between maximizing immediate personal benefit or contributing to collective wellbeing, and where the system breaks down unless enough people cooperate.

32
Q

What are Public goods and common resource pool dilemmas commonly referred to as?

A

public goods dilemmas are sometimes called social fences (the challenge is upfront), whereas common resource dilemmas are called social traps (problems develop with time)

33
Q

What are the different sources of evidence for intuitive prosociality?

A
  • Heroes (anecdotal example)
  • Cognitive approach (public goods game)
  • Neuroscience correlates
  • Developmental emergence