Chapter 2 - Self in the Social World

Question 1

define the spotlight effect

Answer 1

we see ourselves at center stage and overestimate the extent of how much other people pay attention to us

Question 2

define illusion of transparency

Answer 2

our concealed emotions leak out out and can be easily read by others

Question 3

what are the 4 main concepts of the self?

Answer 3

concept, esteem, knowledge, and social

Question 4

define self-schemas

Answer 4

beliefs about self that organize and guide the processing of self-relevant info

Question 5

define social comparison

Answer 5

the way in which others around us help to define the standards by which we evaluate ourselves (ex. rich or poor). this can be a good thing, to raise our standards and have goals, but can also diminish our satisfaction such when we compare to higher up people.

Question 6

define individualism

Answer 6

giving priority to one’s goals over group goals. defining their identity in terms of their own traits instead of group identification, creating the independent self. mostly in western cultures

Question 7

define collectivism

Answer 7

giving priority to the goals of the group instead of your own, creating the interdependent self. mostly in asian cultures

Question 8

define the planning fallacy

Answer 8

the tendency to underestimate how long it will take to complete a task. this going with spending money, how long an assignment will last and how long a relationship will last

Question 9

define impact bias

Answer 9

overestimating the enduring impact of emotion-causing events

Question 10

define dual attitudes

Answer 10

having automatic (implicit) and consciously controlled (explicit) attitudes towards the same object. explicit may change with more education but implicit change slowly with new habits being practised.

Question 11

define self-esteem

Answer 11

a person’s overall evaluation or sense of self-worth

Question 12

what motivates us to maintain our self-esteem?

Answer 12

our self-esteem gauge alerts us to threatened social rejection, motivation us to act with greater sensitivity to others expectations. social rejection makes us more eager for approval.

Question 13

what do people think socail acceptance is based off of?

Answer 13

easily observable traits, such as looks and social skills.

Question 14

common qualities of people with low self-esteem

Answer 14

more vulnerbale to anxiety, loneliness and eating disorders. often take a negative view on everything. notice others worst moments and think people don’t love them. generally experience more problems in life with money, drugs and depression.

Question 15

common qualities of people with high self-esteem

Answer 15

hold initiative, resilience, and pleasant feelings. people who tend to lead groups and do bad things often are high in esteem (ex. terrorists) more likely to be obnoxious, to interrupt, and to talk at people rather than with them.

Question 16

what is the difference between high self-esteem and narcissism?

Answer 16

marcissists have high self-esteem but miss the part about caring about other people. they think they are better than others.

Question 17

define self-efficacy

Answer 17

how competent we feel on a task helps us to set goals and persist with them. thinking that you can do a certain task because your capable and not being you are better than everyone else.

Question 18

define the independent self-construct

Answer 18

• agentic and used “I” more
• separate from others
• focusing on individuality and uniqueness
• individualism

Question 19

define the interdependent self-construct

Answer 19

• communal and used “we” more
• connected to others (apart of your identity)
• relationships are essential
• behaviuors and thoughts are situationally embedded
• collectivism

Question 20

define working self-construct

Answer 20

guides action and information processing on a moment-to-moment basis, what comes to mind easily will be what matters

• situations may activate different aspects (social context or identity)

Question 21

define introspection

Answer 21

where self-knowledge can come from, looking inward to examine our own thoughts and feelings

Question 22

define reflected appraisals

Answer 22

see how other people see us

ex. you can only say you are funny by the way others act around you, ie if they are laughing with you

Question 23

define implicit egotism and its connection to introspection

Answer 23

how people naturally gravitate towards people and places that resemble themselves to create the positive self (Louis living in St. Louis)

this can influence major life decision such as where we live and this is why we are unaware other true reasons we do or feel something.

Question 24

define spotlight effect and its connection to reflected appraisals

Answer 24

tendency to overestimate the extent to which out actions/appearance is noted by others

this is a limit of reflected appraisals since we our guiding ourselves wrongly on how others see us

Question 25

define impact bias

Answer 25

overestimating the impact of emotion causing events

negative: our minds heals us very quickly and helps to find the good in it

positive: big events fade out and are replaced with new challenges/struggles

Question 26

are people good at predicting their behaviuors?

Answer 26

no! we use self-knowledge to predict but only the actual situation can bring out our actual behaviuor (ex. with sexiest man and wanting to confront him)

we underestimate the power of the situation and how much we want ourselves to look positively in our own eyes

we are better at predicting other people’s behaviuor as we can look at them negatively

Question 27

define self-serving bias

Answer 27

the tendancy to perceive yourself favourably, postively.

Question 28

define self-serving attributions

Answer 28

attributing postive outcomes to themselves and negative outcomes to something else

Question 29

what type of people are most liekly to not indulge in self-serving bias

Answer 29

people who suffer with depresion because they usually blame themselves for all the bad that is going on. they have a negative explanatory style.

Question 30

define defensive pessimism

Answer 30

adaptive value of anticipating problems and harnessing one’s anxiety to motivate effective action/coping

Question 31

define the false consensus effect

Answer 31

tendency to overestimate the commonality of one’s opinion and undesirable or unsuccessful beahviuors

we don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are

Question 32

define the false uniqueness effect

Answer 32

tendency to underestimate the commonality of ones abilities and nose desirable or successful behaviuors

Question 33

define temporal comparisons

Answer 33

comparisons between how the self is viewed and how the self was viewed in the past or how the self is expected to be viewed in the future

Question 34

what are the major sources of self-serving bias?

Answer 34

self-serving attributions, self-congratulatory comparisons, illusory optimism, false consensus for our failings, and an illusory sense of improvement

Question 35

define self-handicapping

Answer 35

protecting ones self-image with behaviours that create a handy excuse for future fails

ex. that you go out partying the night before a test to give yourself a reasons if you do bad cause it feels better than really trying and still doing back

Question 36

define self-presentation

Answer 36

refers to our wanting to present a desired image both to an external audience and to ourselves

Question 37

define self-monitoring

Answer 37

being attuned to the way you present yourself in social situation and adjusting your performance to create the desired impression
- acting like a social chameleon

Question 38

define self-presentation theory

Answer 38

assumes that we are eager to present ourselves in ways that make a good impression

Question 39

define learned helplessness

Answer 39

the hopelessness and resignation learned when someone perceives no control over repeated bad events

Question 40

define above average effect

Answer 40

people see themselves as better than average on most positive dimensions. but when it comes to others, we are able to evaluate them more accurately because we can think about them negatively.

this can also go in the opposite way where people underestimate themselves

Question 41

how do people evaluate themselves in comparison to an easy and hard task?

Answer 41

easy: when someone finds they are good at something, people will think they are above average and overestimate themselves

hard: when they are not as good at something, they become more negative and underestimate themselves

Question 42

how do we maintain our self-esteem when it comes to the above-average effect?

Answer 42

we shift values to protect our self-esteem and say that the things that we are good at is what we say is important in our lives.

Question 43

define false consensus

Answer 43

assuming others share our beliefs more than they do, a positive correlation between one’s own opinion and one’s estimate of other people
- you are strange if you don’t act the way I would act

Question 44

what is the most common self-esteem scale that we see used

Answer 44

Rosenberg self-esteem scale

Question 45

what are the 2 views of self-esteem?

Answer 45

bottom-up view: people have self-esteem because they observe that they are smart and liked (it is derived from)

top-down view: people believe they are smart and liked because they have high self-esteem (from info being absorbed)

Question 46

what are some things associated with high self-esteem?

Answer 46

higher life satisfaction, lower depression, better self-efficacy

Question 47

does self-esteem have some effects on subjective experiences?

Answer 47

things like depression, relationships, job satisfaction, and health. but high and low self-esteem people are usually equal on these levels but high people see them a bit differently because low people are more realistic.

Question 48

what is the difference between person and process praise>

Answer 48

person: you did so well on that test because you studied hard and for a long time

process: you are so naturally smart

Question 49

defining self-serving cognitions

Answer 49

take credit for success (internal) and blame other/situations for the failure (external)

Question 50

define downward social comparison

Answer 50

making comparisons with worse others

ex. if you did bad on a test but someone did worse, it makes you feel better

Question 51

define temporal comparisons

Answer 51

favourable past selves and outcomes feel recent, and unfavourable past selves and outcomes feel distant.

ex. high school was not fun for me and because of that, it feel like it was such a long time ago.