Chapter 3: The Social Self Flashcards

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1
Q

How is our self knowledge organized and stored?

A

Self Schemas

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2
Q

DEF What is a self schema?

A

a cognitive structure, derived from past experience that represents a person’s beliefs and feelings about the self, both in general and specific situations

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3
Q

What is the Hazel Markus hypothesis?

A

a person who has a self schema of a particular domain should…

  • process that infor more quickly
  • retrieve consistent evidence more quickly
  • reject contradictory infor more quickly
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4
Q

Hazel Markus Experiment

A
  • participants self label and independent or dependent
  • rated closer to extremes mean that was schematic
  • rated closer to moderate mean that was aschematic
  • asked to rate how certain traits described them
  • schematic people more quickly identified similar traits, made overall ratings quicker, and were more likely to reject contradictions thatn aschematic people
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5
Q

What are some potential origins for the sense of self?

A
  • Family and other socialization agents
  • situationism
  • malleability and stability
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6
Q

How do socialization agents influence our sense of self?

A
  • socialization agents teach up which attitudes, behaviors, and scripts are appopriate
  • we know ourselves by imagining what others think of us (social construction)
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7
Q

What family dynamics influence our sense of self?

A
  • sibling dynamics
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8
Q

What are sibling dynamics?

A
  • scarce resources lead to sibling conflict

- siblings develop different personality traits so they occupy different niches

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9
Q

What is the older sibling trope?

A

more powerful, surrogate parent

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10
Q

What is the younger sibling trope?

A

more agreeable, willing to try new things and go against norms set by older sibling

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11
Q

DEF What is siuationism?

A

we adapt our self to meet a situation

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12
Q

DEF What is a working self concept?

A

only a subset of a person’s vast pool of self-knowledge is brought to mind in any given context

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13
Q

DEF What is the William McGuire and Alice Hypothesis?

A

we tend to highlight what makes us unique in a given situation (assimilation and differentiation)

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14
Q

Willima McGuire and Alice Experiment

A
  • asked children to describe themselves
  • wrote about details that made them a part of a minority group
  • age if they were older
  • gender if a girl
  • race if they were black or other racial minority
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15
Q

How do malleability and stability affect our sense of self?

A
  • malleability of the self changes in certain social situation
  • stability of the self is our continuous core stable self
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16
Q

What remains stable over time in our sense of self?

A
  • our pool of self-knowledge remains relatively stable

- even the way we change in social situations is predictable and consistent

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17
Q

DEF What is the independent self-construal?

A
  • self is autonomous, distinct and separate from others
  • assert your uniqueness
  • internal causes for behavior
  • western cultures
  • SELF IN TERMS OF TRAITS THAT ARE STABLE ACROSS TIME AND SOCIAL CONTEXT
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18
Q

DEF What is the interdependent self construal?

A
  • self is fundamentally connected to other people
  • find a place within community
  • fulfill appropriate social roles
  • eastern cultures
  • SELF IS EMBEDDED WITHIN SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS, ROLES, AND DUTIES
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19
Q

independent vs interdependent focus experiment

A
  • participants asked to tell a story when they were the center of attention
  • westerners tell the story in first person, looking outward, as lead role
  • easterners tell the story as if they were an observer, third person persepctive
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20
Q

McPartland and Kuhn ‘Who Am I’ Experiment

A
  • participants asked to write a list answered the Q
  • American gave context-free responses
  • –personality traits, preferences, etc.
  • Interdependent culture groups list relationships and contect
  • — “Jan’s friend”
  • — “serious at work”, “fun with friends”
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21
Q

Ma and Schoenenan Experiment (Kenya)

A
  • repeated who am i experiment with four groups in Kenya
  • tribes with little to no western exposure = interdependent
  • workers in Nairobi = interdependent with some independent self construals
  • Kenyan undergrads = independent with some interdependent self construals
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22
Q

How does gender affect self construal?

A

Women may be more interdependent

  • more likely to show pictures that include other people
  • more emphatic, better judge of others’ emotions
  • more attuned to situational cues
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23
Q

How do we account for different social contruals across gender?

A

different genders are raised differently, experience different socialization

  • girls are talked with about emotions
  • children play in gender separated groups
  • girls focus on cooperative games (mother child)
  • boys focus on hierarchy and competition
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24
Q

DEF What is social comparison theory?

A

people compare themselves to other people to obtain an accurate assessment of their own opinions, abilities, and internal states
- difficult to quantify honesty, easy to compare your honesty to someone else’s

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25
Q

How do we choose people for social comparison?

A
  • compare to someone at same skill level
  • biased to choose slightly inferior people (we like self esteem boost)
  • someone with slighty better grades is an opportunity for improvement
26
Q

DEF What is self esteem?

A

overall positive or negative evaluation people have of themselves

27
Q

DEF What is trait self esteem?

A

a persons’s enduring level of relf regard OVER TIME

- fairly stable and consistent

28
Q

DEF What is state self esteem?

A

dynamic and changeable self evaluations as momentary feelings about the self
- situation factors

29
Q

DEF What is contingencies of self worth hypothesis?

A

A perspective maintaining that peoples’ self esteem is contigent on the successes and failures in domains on which they have based their self worth (influence of domain)

30
Q

Examples of domains for self evaluation

A

popularity, physical appearence, more virtue, intelligence

31
Q

Contingencies of Self Worth Experiment

A
  • students applying to undergrad filled out self esteem questionarres when they got acceptance/rejection letter
  • greater impact on self esteem if academics were tied to self worth
32
Q

DEF What is the sociometer hypothesis?

A

the idea that self esteem is an internal subjective index of the extent to which a person is inclined or looked on favorably by others

33
Q

What details support the sociometer?

A
  • we need community and shared resources so self esteem helps gauge interactions that we need to survive
  • we feel good about things that others use to accept us
34
Q

Western Self Esteem

A
  • western culture invented low self esteem

- creates interactions designed to enhance self esteem (praised for achievements)

35
Q

Eastern Self Esteem

A
  • many east asian languges have no word or phrase for self esteem
  • create interactions designed to improve the self (critique yourself with your peers)
36
Q

Western vs. Eastern Self Esteem Experiment

A
  • participants given a difficult task and then a second chance to try again
  • westerners worked longer if they successded the first time
  • easterners worked longer if they failed the first time
37
Q

DEF What is self-enhancement?

A

desire to maintain, increase, or protect one’s positive self views.

38
Q

DEF What are self serving construals?

A

people create self serving interpretations (construals) of traits to support self enhancement
- better-than-average effect

39
Q

DEF What is the better than average effect?

A

most people think they are above average on various personality trait and abilty dimensions
- we judge other people how they are on average, but we judge ourselves at our best

40
Q

DEF What is self affirmation theory?

A

people can maintain an overall sense of self worth following psychologically threatening information by affirming a values aspect of themselves unrelated to that

41
Q

How does self enhancement affect our well-being? (west)

A

experiment showed people were happier when living with dillusions of a more positive self
- high self enhancers had more coping skills for stress

42
Q

What are potential motives driving self evaluation?

A
  • self enhancement
  • self serving construals
  • self affirmation theory
43
Q

How does self enhancement effect our wellbeing? (east)

A
  • east asians don’t approve of positive self illusions
  • east asians are not tied to self esteem and therefore don’t need or benefit from positive self enhacement
  • benefit from fulfilling social roles and expectations
44
Q

DEF What is self verification theory?

A

that people sometimes strive for stable, subjectively accurate beliefs about themselves because such self views give them a sense of coherence and predictabilty

  • we attempt to verify our pre-existing beliefs
  • we selectively recall info that is consistent with our self view
  • we focus on relationships that maintain our self views
45
Q

How does self enhancement compare to self verification?

A
  • self enhancement is relevant for emotional response to feedback
  • self verification is relevant for a cognitive assessment of how valid the feedback is
46
Q

Enhancement vs Verification Experiment

A
  • pos and neg self view participants given pos or neg feedback
  • neg belief saw neg as more accurate (verification)
  • pos belief saw pos as more accurate (verification)
  • everyone liked pos feeback (enhancement)
  • on one like neg feedback (enhancement)
47
Q

DEF What is self regulation?

A

the processess by which people initaite, alter, and control their behavior in pursuit of their goals
- helps us prioritize for long term goals

48
Q

DEF What is self discrepancy theory?

A

behavior is motivated by standards reflecting ideal and ought selves

49
Q

DEF What is the actual self?

A

the self that people believe they are

50
Q

DEF What is the ideal self?

A

the self that embodies people’s wishes and aspirations

51
Q

DEF What is the ought self?

A

the self that is concerned with the duties, obligations, and external demands people feel compelled to honor

52
Q

What do we feel if we don’t meet ideal self standards?

A

dejection, disappointment, shame

53
Q

What do we feel if we don’t meet ought self standards?

A

agitated, guilt, anxiety

54
Q

How does self discrepancy theory relate to self regulation?

A

We change or regulate our behavior so our actual self is closer to ideal/ought.

55
Q

DEF What is promotion focus?

A

focus on attaining positive outcomes

  • approach related behavior
  • ideal self standards
  • westerners exhibit more
56
Q

DEF What is prevention focus?

A

focus on avoiding negative outcomes

  • avoidance related behavior
  • ought self standards
  • easterners exhibit more
57
Q

DEF What is self presentation?

A

presenting the person we would like others to believe we are

  • face
  • self monitering
58
Q

What is face?

A

the public image of ourself that we want others to believe

59
Q

DEF What is self monitering?

A

the tendency to moniter one’s behavior to fit the demands of the current situation
- patients in mental hospitals show low self monitering

60
Q

DEF What is self handicapping?

A

tendency to engage in self defeating behavior in order to have an excuse ready should one perform poorly or fail.