Chapter 2: Self In A Social World Flashcards
Spotlight Effect
Seeing ourselves at center stage, overestimating the extent to which others’ attention is aimed at us
People don’t remember what our sweaters say, even if they are crazy or if we change them halfway through a conversation
Only about 25% noticed or cared about the shirt
With a ‘normal’ shirt only 10% of people noticed shirt
Illusion of Transparency
Feel especially transparent when we feel self conscious and worry about being evaluated negatively by others
People think they appear more nervous than they actually appear to others
People who were informed about illusion of transparency before a speech did and felt better than those who were given no instructions and those who were reassured
Self Schemas
Elements of self concept, specific beliefs by which a person defines themselves
Affect how we perceive, remember, and evaluate other people and ourselves
Schema
Mental templates by which we organize our worlds
Agentic
Individualistic
Becoming an adult means separating from parents, being self reliant, defining your independent self (focus on the individual self)
Communal
Collectivist
Heavy value placed on respecting and identifying with a group
Working Self Concept
Only some aspects of self salient at any given time (depends on context)
Situations may activate different aspects of self concept
Introspection
Looking inward and examining our own thoughts, feelings, and motives
Limitations of Introspection
Often unaware of the reasons for our feelings and behaviours
Implicit egotism: people naturally gravitate towards people, places, and things that resemble them
Influences major life decisions (e.g. where people live, people’s jobs, who they marry)
We are often wrong when predicting how we will feel and behave in various situations
We prefer the letters in our name, the numbers in our birthday, etc
Reflected Appraisals
Seeing how other people see us
Many things we can’t tell about ourselves that others can
Reflected Appraisal Limitations
People may not be honest with us
People may not notice us as much as we think they do
Self Esteem
Sum of all our self-views across domains
How much value people place on themselves
Self Efficacy
How competent we feel on a task
Self Serving Bias
Most people see themselves as better than the average person
Self Serving Attributions
Attributing motive outcomes to oneself and negative outcomes to something else
