Chapter 8

Question 1

According to research on self-enhancement and self-esteem, how are people generally motivated to view themselves?

Answer 1

Research reveals that people have a strong need to view themselves positively and have high self-esteem.

-Having high self-esteem is not a goal in all cultures. ex: Japanese students list fewer success vs failure memories

Question 2

What is self-serving biases?

Answer 2

Are tendencies for people to exaggerate how good they think they are

ex: one study demonstrated self-serving biases and asked American college professors how good they were at being at a professor. 94% thought they were better than the average.

Question 3

What are downward vs. upward social comparisons?

Answer 3

Downward: Comparing your performance with the performance of someone who is doing even WORSE than you.

-Creates our own performance as positive

Upward: When we compare our performance with someone who is doing better than we are

Question 4

What is the difference between external vs. internal attributions for success?

Answer 4

Attribution: an explanation for a behavior.

External attributions: When you attribute the cause of your actions to something outside themselves (you don’t accept blame)
-ex: the teacher didn’t even teach us that

Internal attributions: When you locate the cause within yourself, such as our abilities.
ex: That was all me, I got that A all by myself

Question 5

What does research show about different cultural groups’ use of upward vs. downward social comparisons after a failure

Answer 5

A study showed that Asian Canadians engage in more upward social comparisons than downward ones after a failure.

Question 6

What does research show about different cultural groups’ use of attributes after successes and failures?

Answer 6

North Americans make more external attributes for failures, whereas Japanese make more external attributes for successes.

Question 7

What is the endowment effect? Who is more likely to evidence it?

Answer 7

The tendency for people to value objects more once they own then and have endowed them with their own positive qualities.

• People see a connection b/w their objects and their selves
• Endowment is stronger in Western area than East Asian

Question 8

What is face? What cultures care about face?

Answer 8

Face: the amount of social value others five you if you live up to the standards associated with your position.

ex: president has a lot of face, mailman in mailroom has little face.
- (in our culture we want to promote our self, other cultures do things to prevent a loss of face. They make sure the society doesn’t do something to make the culture look bad.)

-East Asia cares about face.

Question 9

How does face differ from self-esteem?

Answer 9

Self-esteem is how the individual view himself.herself positively while face is the amount of social value others give to you if you live up to the standards w/ your position.

Question 10

What is a prevention orientation vs. promotion orientation? What cultures are more concerned with each?

Answer 10

Prevention orientation: approach to not losing something, avoid bad/negative things

Promotion orientation: aspiring or achieving gains, try to secure the good things

• Japanese contained more prevention information
• Americans contained more promotion information

Question 11

How do entity and incremental theories of the world relate to control?

Answer 11

entity theory is the idea that the world is something that is fixed and beyond our control to change and incremental theory is the idea that the world responds to our control to change it

Question 12

What is primary versus secondary control, and which cultures are more likely to manifest each (and why)?

Answer 12

Primary: striving to shape existing realities to fit your own perceptions

Secondary: attempting to align self with existing realities

Western is more likely to use primary because we are more individualistic whereas Asian are more likely to use secondary because they are more into the idea of doing whats best for the group

Question 13

What were the results of the research study on different groups’ remembrance of situations when they influenced or adjusted to others?

Answer 13

Western cultures were more likely to remember a time that they influenced someone else’s choice whereas Asian cultures were more likely to remember a time that someone else influenced their choice

Question 14

How is making choices valued in individualistic versus collectivistic cultures? Who is more likely to make personal choices and why? Who is more likely to let authority make choices and why?

Answer 14

Individualistic cultures value being able to make choices and having plenty of choices to make, wheres collectivistic cultures are more concerned with going with whatever the group is doing and adjusting to fit the group. Therefore, individualistic cultures are more likely to make personal choices and collectivistic cultures are more likely to let authority make choices.

Question 15

What were the results of the Iyengar and Lepper (1999) study on fifth graders playing a math game?

Answer 15

The European-American students played more games where they had more personal choice in their characters wheres Asian-Americans played more games where the choices were made by the group

Question 16

Which of the groups was more likely to keep attempting the game, and under what conditions?

Answer 16

The Asian-American students attempted the most games when their classmates chose their spaceships for them. European-American were not very motivated when an undesirable other made their choices for them.

Question 17

What is learned helplessness, how does it happen, and what are some of its outcomes?

Answer 17

It is the feeling of being unable to control or avoid unpleasant events, which cause stress and potentially depression. When someone has less control over their life outcomes.

Question 18

What does research show about middle-class versus working-class Americans and their opportunities for choice? Which group is more likely to want to express themselves through choice and why (i.e., what does the pen study show)?

Answer 18

Working-class people earn less money and have fewer choices available. Working-class and middle-class people also have different kinds of relationships. Working-class adults-participate in different cultural world from that of upper-middle-class adults; they are more likely to face hardships in their lives, and they have less control over these hardships compared to upper-middle-class people.
Upper-middle-class Americans are raised to favor choices and to express themselves through their choices. Working-class Americans grow up learning that much of what people encounter in life is beyond their control and the ta good way to maintain one's independence.