Chapter 3 The Social Self Flashcards
Self-Concept
The sum total of beliefs that people have about themselves
Self-schema
Beliefs about oneself that guide the processing of self-relevant information.
How we would feel or act in certain situations.
self-awareness
The knower aspect: act of thinking about ourselves
Introspection
A process of looking inward at one’s own thoughts and feelings. Understanding your thoughts,feelings and behaviour.
Affective forecasting
The process of predicting how one would feel in response to future emotional events.
Impact bias
People OVERestimate strength and duration of their emotional reactions.
Self-Perception Theory
When internal cues are difficult to interpret, people gain insight by observing their own behaviour
Intrinsic motivation
Factors within a person that motivate behavior. Ex., doing something for personal interests, the challenge, or enjoyment
Extrinsic motivation
Factors outside the person that motivate behavior. Ex., doing something for tangible benefit (money/grades/recognition), to fulfill an obligation, or to avoid punishment/penalty.
Over justification effect
The tendency for intrinsic motivation to diminish for activities that have become associated with reward or other extrinsic factors.
Social Comparison Theory
The theory that people evaluate their own abilities and opinions by comparing themselves to others. (Festinger, 1954).
Self-esteem
An affective component of the self, consisting of a person’s positive and negative self-evaluations
Self-discrepancy theory
According to Higgins (1987), our self-esteem is defined by the match or mismatch between how we see ourselves and how we want to see ourselves.
Actual self vs ought self vs ideal self
Self-presentation
Enhancing the self to oneself and to others
Strategic self-presentation
Consists of our efforts to shape others’ impressions in specific ways in order to gain influence, power, sympathy, or approval.
Ingratiation
A term used to describe acts that are motivated by the desire to “get along” with others and be liked.
Self-promotion
A term used to describe acts that are motivated by a desire to “get ahead” and gain respect for one’s competence.
Self-verification
The desire to have others perceive us as we truly perceive ourselves. According to William Swann (1987), people are highly motivated in their social encounters to confirm or verify their existing self-concept in the eyes of others.
Self-monitoring
(Mark Snyder, 1987), the tendency to regulate one’s own behavior to meet the demands of social situations.
Favourable Self-Views / Above average effect
People see themselves as better than average on most positive dimensions (and things they personally value)
Dunning-Kruger effect
People tend to overestimate own abilities - But some do it more than others
Participants with lowest scores on logic, humour, and grammar were the ones most likely to overestimate their own abilities
Implicit Egotism
A non-conscious form of self-enhancement/ subtle expression of self-esteem.
We like stuff associated with the self
Self-enhancement
4 major strategies we employ to feel better about themselves:
* Self-serving cognitions
* Self-handicapping
* BIRGing
* Downward social comparisons
Self-Serving Cognitions
Intrinsic explanations for successes and extrinsic explanations for failures
