Lecture 8 - The Self in Social Context II Flashcards
Self-enhancement basics (and recap)
Strong desire to have a positive self view
• Positive illusions
• Strong desire for others to see us positively
• How do we support such positive self views?
• Biased evaluations when we compare ourselves to others (e.g.,
better than average effect)
• Biased evaluations when we compare ourselves to our self…
Temporal comparisons (basics and hypothesis)
Social comparison can be threatening (we often compare to similar or superior others)
Temporal comparison—esp. to past selves—are often
“downward” and therefore feel safe (e.g. young = shy, now = not)
H: Temporal (vs. social) comparisons favored when people want to enhance themselves…
Temporal comparisons experimental instructions
People were assigned to one of two groups:
(1)
Sometimes we want to describe ourselves in a
way that makes us feel particularly good about
ourselves. We select information that makes us
feel best and describe ourselves in the most
positive light…
Describe yourself in a way that makes you feel
good about yourself
(2)
Sometimes we want to evaluate ourselves as
accurately as possible. We select information
that we feel is most useful and relevant in
making a precise assessment of ourselves….
Describe yourself in a way that provides the
most accurate assessment of yourself.
Temporal comparisons results
When instructed to enhance themselves they chose information which allowed temporal comparisons
When told to be realistic, they used social comparisons
Fits theory
Temporal comparisons
subtle replication using a word association task
“Word association task”
– Read 36 words and categorize according to meaning
Ptps were PRIMED to either self-enhance or honestly self evaluate
In one condition; Enhance (positivity and praise): flawless, worthy, positive, satisfied, flatter, boast, approve, admire
In another; Evaluation (accuracy and evaluation): factual, unbiased, precise,
honest, scrutinize, verify, assess, evaluate
Describe self on number of attributes (social skills, independence,
self confidence, open-mindedness)
Open-ended self-descriptions coded for comparison standard
RESULTS
When primed to enhance, people used more temporal comparisons. When primed to evaluate honestly, people used more social comparisons.
Successfully replicated.
Temporal comparisons
When we’re motivated to view the self positively, we use temporal comparison information to get the answer we want
In fact, we do this spontaneously, and are quite
sophisticated…
Social comparison theory basics
Self esteem and the success of others is a function of
(1) the closeness of the person
(2) the relative importance of the domain they experienced success in to us.
When others experience success/failure it impacts our self-esteem especially when they are close.
If the success is an another domain, this positively affects our SE
But if the close person succeeds in OUR domain (that is important to us) it decreases our SE.
Temporal comparison to maintain and enhance current self views (a theory that incorporated social comparison theory)
People utilize temporal comparison to maintain/enhance
current self-views:
- Disparage distant past selves (this serves to increase the contrast between these failing old selves and the current, winning new one)
- Compliment recent past selves (by basking in the recent success)
Moreover, appraisal pattern stronger for important attributes because of relevance for self regard (like Social Comparison
Theory)
Temporal distance manipulation
Experiment to show distant disparaging and recent hx used to self enhance
Rate current self (past 2 wks) on attributes plus attribute importance
-Then rate “past self ”:
Group 1 (Recent condition): How were you in your recent past, the beginning of term?
Group 2 (Distant condition): Think back to another point in time, all the way back to the beginning of term “what were you like back then"?
In reality IT IS THE SAME TIME PERIOD but manipulated to look further/closer.
RESULTS
In the recent condition, there was no difference between the ratings of the present and past self on important attributes.
In the distant condition, there past self was rated as worse for important attributes.
So the further past was used for DISPARAGING to show that self in a negative light.
Self enhancement vs. verification
Do we construct purely positive self images, or do we seek the truth?
In our interactions with others, do we want them to see us as who we are, or who we want to be?
Swann: we want verification of who we are, we want other to confirm our self views…
Why would we want to verify?
We want control and predictability: need to predict the responses of others in order to have smooth interactions
If others view me differently than I view myself, then:
- Performance anxiety
- Epistemic anxiety (Am I who I think I am or who they think I am?)
What are the challenges associated with testing if people want to verify things?
MOST people have high self-esteem and positive self
views
-This is a problem because if you randomly sample and get a representative group, they will on average have high SE (and so comparisons are hard)
Hard to tease apart enhancement vs. verification
• Pos feedback = enhancing & verifying
If everyone has SE then when they are enhancing they are ALSO verifying because this is how they see themselves.
How then do you tease apart the two?
Test to see if people self-verify as well as self enhance
Recruit high and (true) low self-esteem people
– Upper/lower 20%
-Go to class, test all of them, use the higher and lower 20%
“Getting acquainted study”
– Ptps told they will chose interaction partner for 2-3 hour conversation
– Also told you will be allowed to see evaluations made by 2 people from
you based on tests you took earlier (in reality, fake)
2 evaluations available:
“This person seems socially confident. He appears at ease with people he doesn’t know very well. He seems to have little doubt about his social competence…”
“From looking at this person’s answers he appears to be ill at ease in social situations. There are probably times when he’s
around other people and just doesn’t know what to do or
say…he’s uncomfortable and anxious.”
Asked WHO DO YOU WANT TO INTERACT WITH FOR 3 HOURS?
RESULTS
Those with high SE chose people with a favorable view. This is both self-enhancement and self-verification.
Those with low SE chose those with an unfavorable view of them. This is self-verification but not self-enhancement.
Chose self enhancement in the high SE group but also self verification in both groups because they chose the people who had the same view of them as they did.
Self-verification strivings
Replicated many times:
• Low SE favor interaction partners who:
• evaluate them unfavorably over those who evaluate them
favorably
• evaluate them unfavorably over being in another
experiment
• but preferred to be in another experiment than to interact
with someone who viewed them positively!
• Also in close relationships:
• LSE do better when other’s view more realistic
• LSE withdraw in relationships in which their spouse
views them favorably
“I like the (favorable) feedback but I am not sure that it is, ah, correct,
maybe. It sounds good but (the unfavorable evaluator) . . . seems to
know more about me. So I’ll choose (the unfavorable evaluator)”
Verification vs. enhancement
Cognitive-affective crossfire
• We want to feel good (affective)
• But we want consistency/verification of who we think we
are (cognitive)
• No conflict for HSE
• But conflict for LSE
• It feels good (to be evaluated positively) but it’s wrong!
- Cognitive and affective responses are independent processes:
- Enhancement evokes an AUTOMATIC response System I)
- Verification/consistency evokes a CONTROLLED response (System II)
• Do LSE people both seek and abhor positive feedback?
• If controlled (cognitive) process disrupted, automatic
(affective) process should win out due to duel process theory.
