Ch 2: The Self

Question 1

What are the 4 parts of the self?

Answer 1

Self concept: Who am i
Self esteem: My sense of self-worth
Self knowledge: how can i explain and predict myself
Social self: my group identity

Question 2

How do we organize self-relvant information?

Answer 2

Self-schema - beliefs about self that organize and guide the processing of self-relevant information

Question 3

What impacts our self-concept?

Answer 3

Social comparisons - We compare ourselves to others and are conscious of those differences.
May have either positive or negative effects on the self

Question 4

What is the Spotlight effect?

Answer 4

Spotlight effect - see ourselves as if we are on “centre stage”

Question 5

What is the Illusion of transparency?

Answer 5

Illusion of transparency - our worry about being evaluated negatively, especially when we feel self-conscious
tendency for people to overestimate the degree to which their personal mental state is known by others.

Question 6

How does culture impact the self?

Answer 6

Individualism - independence, autonomy
* Independent self: stable self-concept and personal self-esteem

Collectivism - relationships, environments
* Interdependent self - malleable self-concept and relational self-esteem

Question 7

How does culture impact self esteem?

Answer 7

Individualistic:
* More personal self- esteem, less relational
* Persist longer on tasks when succeeding
* Downward social comparisons
* Self-evaluations biased positively

Collectivistic:
* Relational and malleable self-esteem
* Persist longer on tasks when failing
* Upward social comparisons
* Self-evaluations as balanced

Question 8

Using self knowledge, what happens when we try to predict behaviour?

Answer 8

planning fallacy - tendency to be too optimistic about one’s estimates. As a result, the time needed to get something done is underestimated.

Question 9

Using self knowledge, what happens when we try to predict feelings?

Answer 9

affective forecasting - predictions of how we will feel about future emotional events
impact bias - overestimate the intensity and durability of affect when making predictions about their emotional responses

Question 10

What is self-serving bias?

Answer 10

The tendency to attribute personal failure to external forces and personal success to internal forces. We make external and internal attributions

Question 11

What are the 4 self-serving biases?

Answer 11

• self-serving attributions (attributing positive outcomes to oneself and negative outcomes to something else)
• comparing oneself favourably to others
• unrealistic optimism
• false consensus and unquieness

Question 12

Describe unrealistic optimism.

Answer 12

• Predisposed to optimism
• Unrealistic optimism towards future events
• supported by being pessimistic about others’ futures
• BUT: illusory optimism increases vulnerability; defensive pessimism helps people prepare for problems

Question 13

What is the false consensus effect?

Answer 13

Overestimating the commonality of one’s opinions and one’s undesirable or unsuccessful behaviours.
We think people agree/act like us more than they do. E.g. “I lie, but doesn’t everyone?”

Question 14

What is the false uniqueness effect?

Answer 14

Underestimating the commonality of one’s abilities and one’s desirable or successful behaviours

Question 15

What are the two factors that influence self-presentation?

Answer 15

• self - handicapping
• self - monitoring

Question 16

What is self - handicapping?

Answer 16

Protecting one’s self-image with behaviours that create an excuse for later failure.
e.g. Bob decides to play video games instead of studying before a big exam.
* Handicaps protect both self-esteem and public image by allowing us to attribute failures to something temporary or external rather than to lack of talent or ability

Question 17

What is self - monitoring?

Answer 17

Being attuned to the way one presents oneself in social situations and adjusting the performance to create the desired impression
High self-monitors are very concerned with impression vs Low self-monitors are not

Question 18

What are two factors that impact self-control?

Answer 18

• Learned helplessness
• Self-efficacy

Question 18

What is Learned helplessness?

Answer 18

Learned helplessness - occurs when an individual feels like they have no control over negative events; become passive
* Uncontrollable bad events -> Perceived lack of control -> Learned helplessness

Question 19

What is Self-efficacy?

Answer 19

Self-efficacy - a belief in your own competence