Lecture 4 - Self and motivation Flashcards
20 statements test
people need to answer the question -> Who am I?
it is coded in 2 categories - personal characterisics (abstract, stable traits that exist by themselves) vs roles and memberships (context dependent behaviors)
Kenya - 20 statement test
undergraduates - most exposed to Western culture -> responses similar to American undergraduates -> independent self favored
workers in Nairobi more responses favoring interdependent self
semi-nomadic tribes (Masai, Samburu) -> almost all respones favoring interdependent self
indepedent self
- self experienced as distinct from others
- self-defining aspects are within the individual
- self is bounded and stable
- ingroup boundaries are relatively permeable
interdependent self
- self is fundamentally connected to others
- key aspects of identity are grounded in relationships
- self is fluid, situation-dependent
- ingroup-outgroup distinction is solid
self concept in the brain
participants - Western expact in China and Chinese
- activation patterns in Chinese participants = the same areas were activated when thinking about selves and mothers (particularly, in medial prefrontal cortex - area previously linked to self-representations)
- Western participants → patterns differ → thinking about other people requires different brain regions than thinking about selves
what are the proximal and distal causes related to self concept?
distal causes - agriculture (rice vs wheat)
proximal causes - education (promotes analytical thinking), also on local level
entity theory of self
aspects of self are resistant to change across one’s life because they are innate
incremental theory of self
aspects of self are malleable and can be improved because they depend on one’s efforts
effects of praising effort vs intelligence
children solving easy vs hard puzzles
praising intelligence -> want to work with easier puzzles (innateness)
praising effort -> want to work on harder puzzless (growth mindset)
self concept and self consistency
participants needed to describe themselves in different contexts (authority, peer, group, alone)
-USA - self descriptions generally more positive and rather stable
Japan - self descriptions most positive when alone, the most critical when accompanied by authority
role of cognitive dissonance
prominent in individualistic culture -> stable self -> if you act inconsistently with stable self, you enter cognitive dissonance
interdependent self - more flexibile self perception - cognitive dissonance is hypothesized not to cause that much negative effects (follow up study showed it was not exactly the case)
When cognitive dissonance matters for interdependent self?
When Japanese needed to make decisions for their friends, not for themselves
example: they needed to choose menu items and rate them in accordance to their friend liking -> then they needed to choose between middle ranged items in the ranking - then while rating items again, chosen items got rated higher (justification: my friend will like what I choose for them) = importance of peer consistency
self concept and self awareness (how do you remember situations in life?)
through “I” lense - subjective self awareness - independent self
through “me” lense - objective self awareness - interdependent self - seeing themselves through situational contexts
What happens when “me” perspective is made more salient?
example: putting mirror in the room
Americans become more self crititical, but there is no difference observed for Japanese (who are naturally more atuned to “me” perspective)
personality
differences in characteristic thoughts, feelings, behavior when situational variables are held constant
OCEAN
- Openness
- Conscientiousness
- Extraversion
- Agreeableness
- Neuroticism
What personality factors has been found in Chinese participants?
CPAI
- interpersonal relatedness - harmony, relational orientation, tradition (unique)
- social potency - leadership, adventurousness, extraversion
- individualism - defensiveness, self-orientation
- dependability - responsibility, optimism, trustworthiness
What factor is missing from Chinese personality inventory?
openness to experience!
How universal is OCEAN?
big 5 is fairly cross-culturally robust (at least in industralized populations of students….
-> in non-industrial populations it is more expected to find just 2 factors
1. does it tap into all personality variability? (example: Chinese inventory)
2. reference-group effect (example: punctuality in UK and Italy)
- factors may be found but what do they mean?
Maslow hierarchy of needs
social needs -> self actualization (mastery), self-esteem (self enhancement), love and belonging (connectedness)
connectedness motivation
difference in how it is realised
independent self -> acting as individual agents, distinct from others -> emphasis: unique
interdependent self -> acting as relational agents, consistently with others -> emphasis -> belonging
pen study on the airport
- European/American → minority pen color → sticking out/unique
- East Asian → majority pen color → fit in/belonging
self enhancement motivation
independent self -> self-seriving bias, downward social comparison, compensatory self enhancement, discounting negative information, external attribution to failure, basking in reflected glory - emphasis: high self esteem
interdependent self -> self-criticism, upward social comparison, increase significance of domain, internal attribution of failure, critical attitude toward one’s team - emphasis: modesty
independent self -> what determines worth? what is the motivation?
worth -> self-esteem -> assingment of positive value to yourself
motivation -> self-enhancement -> focusing on one’s strengths to advance them -> promotion orientation, making sure good things happen
interdependent self -> what determines worth? what is the motivation
worth - motivation -> face -> others grant you positive value if you fulfill role expectations (easily lost)
motivation -> self-improvement -> focus on weaknesses and trying to improve them -> prevention orientation, making sure bad things dont happen
characteristics of face
- easier lost than gained
- promotes striving for self-improvement - focus on weaknesses to correct them - to minimize chances of losing face (prevention orientation)
- involves concern how one is perceived by others
- East Asians like brand-name luxury goods - motivation: social recognition
measuring persistence after test feedback
- Canada - higher persistence after success → wanted to work on things they did well
- Japan - higher persistence after failure → working on things they did poorly
mastery motivation
- capacity of individuals to exert control over the environment to achieve desired outcomes
there are different models of agency and different ideas of how people achieve control
How do people exert agency as individuals?
disjoint agency
actions should be freely chosen, contingent on own preferences, goals, intentions, motives
decisions are independnet from others
choice = free, autonomous choice, expression of individual preferences
example: Subway - a lot of choices to make
How do people exert agency as collectives?
cojoint agency
actions are responsive to obligations, expectations from others, roles, situations
preferences, goals, intentions are interpersonally anchored
choice = freely acting to meet perceived requirement, consideration of others
example: Japanese bakery - information what item is best seller, what cheff recommends
what happens when personal choice is not possible?
Asking people in shopping mall to complete questionnaire in exchange for pen.
- free choice - chosing any pen
- usurped choice - after chosing the pen, exeprimenter said “I’m sorry. You cannot have this pen. It’s the last type I have. Here-take this one”
working class seems to be equally content with free and usurped choice, whereas upper middle class is more content with free choice
How do people achieve control? Western viewpoint
incremental theory of the world
“primary control” - shape existing reality to fit one’s perceptions, goals, and wishes
supports disjoint agency
emphasis: influence
How do people achieve control? Eastern viewpoint
entity theory of the world
“secondary control” - adjust some aspect of the self and accept circumstances as they are
supports cojoint agency
emphasis: adjustment
why people attend aerobic classes?
- US → convenient time, when they needed to do hard move, they did their own version of it -> influencing (universally considered more powerful)
- Japan → class at appriopriate level for them (adjusting their schedule to better fit with the class), trying hard to keep up -> adjusting (also felt more powerful when doing so)
How universal Maslow hierarchy of needs is?
- Maslow needs are phrased in Western terms
(self-esteem, self-actualization) - realization of underlying universal needs is contingent on the cultural context (self-esteem vs face)
- hierarchy itself may not be necessarily universal
does local context (city) matter for self and well being?
Boston vs San Francisco
Reflecting themes of “old and established,” Boston’s history and cultural products emphasize tradition, status, and community, and social norms are relatively tight; accordingly feelings and selves are socially contingent.
In contrast, reflecting themes of “new and free,” San Francisco’s history and cultural products emphasize unlimited possibility, egalitarianism, and innovation, and social norms are relatively loose; accordingly feelings and selves are relatively less contingent on others.
what is personality?
individual characteristic patterns of thoughts, emotion and behavior → looking at individual differences → we can to some extent predict how people may behave
what are two main approaches to personality and culture?
etic -> universal perspective
emic -> relative perspective
universal perspective
etic
the same constructs are used to measure personality traits across cultures (the same models of personality)
cross- cultural = transcultural = intercultural
question: what personality traits are recurring?
focus on cultural comparison
enables to ask “big” questions like accuracy of stereotypes etc.
OCEAN - argued to be universal
5 factor model -> found empirically, hypothesized to have biological background involved -> high correlation of individual differences with genetic differences = 0.4
good agreement between self and observer rating
factor seem to be cosistent across cultures
relativistic perspective
emic
understanding personality within cultural context
cultural = indigenous = intracultural
question: what are implicit models of personality in the cultural context?
emphasis on insight into culture and representation of personality within it (local context)
How did relativistic approach to studying personality evolve?
It started with anthropological studies - Margaret Mead went to Somoa and observed that adolescent rebellion was absent in this culture. The idea was to embedd yourself within the culture and write down observations.
major limitation: stereotyping
Subsequently, in 2nd half of 20th century the studies focused on more isolated concepts (such as amae in Japan) and investigating relational constructs
Is the big 5 complete?
it is highly generalizable, but other models are also highly generalizable!
so there is no one definitive model of personality!
instruments to some extent impose structure -> there may be blind spots in dominant models of personality
psycholexical approach
lexical hypothesis = personality characteristics perceived as important become encoded in language as single terms
how to conduct studies according to psycholexical approach?
- examine dictionary of language of interest
- select all terms that can describe people
- reduction (exclude physical describtions, synonyms) - reduced pool
- people need to rate themselves and others
- analysis of results via factor analysis
- this is how OCEAN was found! → first in English, then in several other languages, both Indo-European and others (Hungary, Korea)
- studies in some languages identified different structures
studies on South African Personality inventory - process
11 different languages (not based on dictionaries) -> important to conduct interviews with people themselves
question: how would you describe yourself? how would you describe sb you like/dislike?
asking experts to double check on interpretations made
condensing and reducing data
devloping questionnaire
What personality factors have been found in South African Personality Inventory?
1) openness
2) extraversion
3) neuroticism
4) social relation positive - being a guide, interpersonal relatedness, warm heart, social intelligence, integrity
5) social relation negative - conflict seeking, deceitful, egoism, hostile
What OCEAN personality factor is missing from South African Personality Inventory?
agreeableness! - which is also the largest factor
Is South African Personality Inventory unique to African culture?
No! it was replicacted in New Zealand Europeans and indigenous groups -> model predicted family orientation and well being
What is the downside of OCEAN?
there are some blind-spots relating to investigated constructs!
for example in Africa social-relational aspects, in Arabic context = honesty and humility
Are etic and emic approaches opposite?
For long time, both approaches were treated as disjointed
However, recent findings suggest that they are complementary!
What are the causes of lack of openness of experience in chinese inventory?
openness of experience tends to be merged with extroversion! - they are often described in terms of dynamic experiences
openness in general is smallest and last factor of OCEAN which was identified
endowment effect
valuing object more because it belongs to us -> more prominent in individualistic cultures
