Justin LinProfessor FergusonPSYCH 380021 June 2016

Portfolio Example 1: Actor observer effect

While watching the NBA playoffs and finals, the actor observer effect has ben in full

display. In listening to all of the pundits, casual fans, news articles, and media about the top

basketball players in the world, the actor observer holds. The most evident manifestation of this

is when former players of the NBA give opinions of the current players. Listening to all of the

comments of former players as analysts, the success that top players such as Stephen Curry and

Lebron James are often attributed to their personality and external factors (talent). Less emphasis

is given to the hard work, long hours, and deliberate practice when it comes to other people’s

success. As observers, the pundits attribute basketball talent of current players to these factors.

However, in explaining their own success, they often delineate the long hours and personal

backstory that led to their success. They know the situational forces that played a role in their

own accomplishments. However, as observers, these players attribute personality and innate

talent as the primary reasons for the success or lack thereof. In contrasting the interviews of the

players who are known as high motor players and external critiques, hard work and environment

is always emphasized in player interviews. The same effect is also observed in defeat. Observers

attribute defeat to innate characteristics such as lack of effort and talent. However, the players

have the context and thus attribute it more to situational factors such as level of competition and

confidence level. I believe that the sports media exhibit actor-observer bias everyday.

Portfolio Example 2: Anchoring

In my family, one of the ways that my parents raised three kids was some friendly games.

Whenever they took us grocery shopping, we would often play a fun math game. Each of us

would attempt to guess the total bill while standing in the checkout line waiting for the cashier.

When we went on road trips or vacations, they would keep us quiet by asking us to guess the

closest arrival time. There would always be some sort of incentive involved. Often, the person

who guessed to closest to the actual time or actual bill total would receive some sort of reward.

Sometimes, sweets or treats would be the reward. Other times, the winner would be excused

from doing chores. Interestingly enough, the anchoring effect may have influenced all of those

decisions. Often, the first person who made a guess would anchor the guesses of the other

people. As such, the variance of all the guesses would be relatively low. The position of the

individual in making a guess would put people at advantages. This relates to social cognition and

anchoring because of the research showing that we have a cognitive bias that gives us a tendency

to rely on the initial piece of information to make any subsequent decision or judgment. If I had

always guessed first as a kid, I may have been able to influence the guesses of my brother and

sister. Had I known this, I may have gotten more treats and avoided more chores over the years!

Portfolio Example 3: Over claiming

In talking with some of my friends after the semester, I have experienced the effect of

over-claiming. After taking classes related to my major in chemical engineering, underclassmen

in my major have been asking for my assistance more and more frequently. This is to be

expected because of my experience and knowledge after studying and spending time in school.

However, I have also found myself increasingly confident in making claims, even when I am

unable to back them with evidence. For example, before the semester, I would never answer any

questions about Honors Physical Chemistry and quantum mechanics with any level of

confidence. Now, I can clearly answer some of the questions covered in the course. I also tend to

over-claim however. Even when questions are asked of me that go beyond the scope of the

material covered in the classes which I have taken, I have a false sense of confidence and often

answer with conviction. This overconfidence leads to over claiming. This is consistent with

social cognition principles that show that people with more knowledge in a specific area are also

more likely to make claims about things they do not know in the same subject area. Knowing

this obvious bias, I now think more carefully about the answers that I give about subjects that I

know. Since I am more likely to claim unsubstantiated knowledge in areas I have experience in, I

now double-check the facts.

Portfolio Example 4: Pop-out Effect

At the end of the semester, one of the tasks that I was involved in had some

administrative sorting work to be done. The task was relatively simple and tedious; I wanted to

sort out my flashcards for my sister to start preparing for the standardized testing. As I had

compiled a pretty extensive list of vocabulary words for my personal SAT and ACT testing

preparation, I wanted to sort my scrambled deck by category. I previously had received some of

my brother’s old flash cards. Additionally, when I prepared my cards, I had the words that I

found more difficult and non-intuitive distinctly marked on the top with orange highlighter. As I

was sorting about a thousand or so cards, this was pretty tedious. As social cognition predicts, I

was getting faster and faster after several hundred repetitions. My mind received the visual

stimulus, made a decision for which pile to place the card in, and sent a message to my muscles

to place the card. I got faster and faster at doing this as time went on. Interestingly enough, the

pop-out effect happened to me. When I starting looking over my notes for another one of my

summer classes, I found my eyes automatically drawn to that shade of orange highlighter.

However, none of the other colors that I marked my notes with had the effect. The orange

highlight increased the accessibility. Also, since I had conditioned myself to think that orange

highlights were important, I kept having to peel my eyes away while studying. The pop-out

effect had happened because I trained myself to look for that color.

Portfolio Example 5: Fast thinking vs Slow thinking

In recent chess news, World Champion Magnus Carlsen was able to win some major

chess tournaments. As I learned about system one and two thinking during the Kahneman

interview, I thought about the current world champion and playing chess. Carlsen has often been

famous for his instinctive and natural feel for playing chess. He has often stated that he likes to

play on instinct, often making snap judgments about the best chess squares to place his pieces.

Carlsen was playing against former world champion Vishy Anand in the World Championship

matches. During one of the moves, Carlsen had dozed off because he had calculated the moves

in advance. He is particularly known for his mastery of end games and combinations of moves.

However, chess players at the very top spend several minutes double-checking their intuition.

This struck me as a great example of system one vs system two thinking. System one, or fast

thinking, is employed by players like Magnus who make snap judgments based on instinct and

instantaneous feelings. System two thinking is the long, logical, calculating of the particular

outcomes. Older players such as Vishy Anand are known for spending much more time

deliberating and calculating specific lines of moves. In the interview, Kahneman specifically

pointed to chess players as System 2 thinkers. However, the different playing styles show that

the exact balance and preference may very well dictate the style of play.

Portfolio Example 6: Mood congruent recall

While journaling my end-of the semester reflections and introspection, I experienced

mood congruent recall. I journal fairly regularly, so the effect can be observed in my written

entries with several different moods. In rereading some of my entries, I have found that the

entries written while I am in a positive, upbeat mood due to some event (i.e. good prelim score,

awesome event, professor compliments) are significantly filled with more positive events and

language. While the entry topics are not filled with any more positive events, the specific journal

articles seem to only recount positive things happening to me. On the other hand, I have written

some journal entries when I was feeling quite down. In those entries, I recounted several other

lows that had happened to me throughout the semester. For example, I recalled some of the

setbacks such as bad test scores, interpersonal drama, broken friendships on a day that I was

feeling down because of the death of a friend’s family member. This is an example of mood

congruent recall. I was better able to recall events and circumstances that coincided with the

specific mood I was in at the given point in time. My journal entries showed that I was able to

recall much more good events when I was feeling positive. Conversely, I am able to recall many

more negative events when I am feeling terrible. This is a clear example of mood congruent

recall.