Priming Relationship Schemas: My Advisor and the Pope are Watching Me from the Back of my Mind

1. Priming Relationship Schemas: My Advisor and the Pope are Watching Me from the Back of my Mind Mark W. Baldwin Suzanne Carrell David Lopez Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 1990

2. Background • Set the scene: • Late 1980s • Subliminal priming measures just developing • New, exciting measure • Social cognition growing field • Looking to establish how info about one’s significant relationships is perceived, interpreted, stored, and recalled • Previous research: • Impact of internally represented significant others on the experience of self • Baldwin and Holmes (1987): - older members of family vs. two associates from campus - enjoyableness of reading a sexual passage

3. AimsHypothesis Use already established principles of social disapproval How does the experience of social disapproval effect the self? Individuals self-evaluations will be more negative and self-critical following disapproval patterns

4. Study 1 Method • 16 graduate students • Major evaluative authority figure chosen, Robert Zajonc (director of the department) to serve as disapproving stimulus • John Ellard a postdoctoral fellow also familiar with students served as the approving stimulus • Procedure • Students wrote key words to describe three of their most recent research ideas • Complete a ‘bogus’ reaction time task • Randomly assigned order of presentation of disapproving and approving faces - After exposure trial rate research idea

5. Exposure to four blank slides (intermittent with flashing lights) • Rate first research idea • Exposure to either Disapproving or Approving faces • Rate second research idea • Exposure to Approving or Disapproving (opposite of second exposure phase) • Rate third research idea

6. Study 1 Results • Five rating scales (how good, important, original, and liked idea was, plus percentage grade) averaged • Lack of statistical power given small sample size • Score subjects gave their ideas tended to be higher following a presentation of the approval stimulus +most evident after first experimental prime + focus mostly on ‘first face’ trial and differences between groups - For approval group M= 82.6 and for disapproval group M= 67.8 sig. at p<0.05 -Difference of 15 percentage points about a standard deviation

7. ISSUES! • Why ignore the ‘second face’ trial? • No discussion of within subject effects • Very small sample size • Is the effect because of an interpersonal connection or the unpleasantness/pleasantness of the stimuli? • Direction of effect: is the variation because of the approving or disapproving face? • No adequate control condition

8. Study 2 Method • 46 Catholic undergraduate women • Familiar disapproving face- Pope John Paul II • Unfamiliar disapproving face- Robert Zajonc • Procedure • Participants read two stories: a filler story about a park and the other described a woman’s sexual dream (‘neither explicit nor erotic’) • Exposure to face stimuli (Pope John Paul, Zajonc, or blank card) • Completed questionnaires– momentary self-concept/ enjoyableness of sexually explicit passage/ degree of religious practice

9. Study 2 Results • Each adjective pair for momentary self-concept given a score out of 9 • Separate competency, anxiety, and morality subscales • 3 (control/Pope/unfamiliar other) x 2 (level of practicing) +Unfamiliar and control group did not differ, Pope group significantly lower evaluation of self +Main effect of practicing not significant , but interaction between condition and practicing significant (only in high practicing group was there an effect of experimental condition- Pope group lower self-evaluations) • Self-conceptions subscales +Competency main effect for condition +Anxiety main effect for condition was significant +Morality main effect was not significant, but practicing by condition interaction was significant (lower self evaluations for Pope condition) - Story Evaluations no significant effects

10. Discussion • Study 2 addresses some issues raised by Study 1 • Exposures to truly significant others can have an effect on self-conception (for Study 1?) • Self-conceptions- disapproval does not just lead to anxiety but also lower competency ratings • Raises questions of affective vs. cognitive processes or interaction of both • Relationship schema/ interpersonal schema

11. Methods, methods, methods… • Study raises interesting issues in experimental design • Switch from within-subject design to between-subject design • What to use for measure of a broad category like ‘self-evaluation’

12. Too cool for old school? • Questions to consider for discussion: • How has the emergence of technology affected the study of psychological phenomena? • As the field of neuroscience grows what consequences does this have for the ‘traditional’ fields of psychology (i.e. developmental, cognitive, clinical etc.)? • What are the benefits and negatives (if any?) for using brain imaging/response(i.e. fMRI & EEG) methods? • Will more ‘old-school’ methods continue to be relevant and important on their own? (i.e. reaction time measures, pen and paper studies)