Lesson 2 : Self- Development

Question 1

Introspection as Self-knowledge : outline

Answer 1

1. Instrumental Self-Analysis
2. Social Self-Analysis

Question 2

yourself

Instrumental Self-Analysis

Answer 2

• Information about self in relation to the environment
  1. The ability to complete tasks such as running, jumping or problem solving
  2. Objective pass/fail
  3. Managing emotional reactions
  4. Capable of learning about self alone

Question 3

Social Self-Analysis

Answer 3

• Information about the self in relation to others
  1. Comparison required
• How good are you compared to others
  2. Attributes appraised by others (kindness, identity)

Question 4

What is introspection

Answer 4

The activity of holding our own beliefs, memories, thoughts and feelings in conscious attention
- Reflective practice of examining the self as an object
- When we reflect on our thoughts, emotions and memories and examine wha they man, we are engaged in introspection

Question 5

Issues with Introspection : Introspective illusion

Answer 5

• Belief that we hae accurate understanding of our own thoughts, motivations, beliefs and feelings
• We experience reflective thoughts as true & accurate
• We perceive our selves to be more objective than others : it reassures us that our judgments were correct and supported by sound reasons / we aren’t comforted by the idea that others who state they have reflected and state to be fair

Question 6

3 FIC

Causes of introspective illusion:

Answer 6

Fundamental Attribution Error : Overlook or underestimate influence of situational factos / overestimate persona characteristics : fundamental issues within ourselves
Implicit/ unconscious processes: Unaware tp be aware of certain processes, biases, impulses, habit - all difficult to notice, occur without reflection, may be stored in inaccessible parts of the brain
Confabulation: Filling gaps in our concious awareness , makes disconnected memories/ thoughts more consistent & rational feeling : fill it with what we want rather than the real / own perspective

Question 7

Jones and Harris (1967): Causes of introspective illusion: Fundamental attribution error

Answer 7

Reminder: Overlook or underestimate environmental influence of situation

How do we test for it?
Students were either given a pro or anti Castro essay, written by students for a political science exam and were asked to judge the true attitude of the writer.

Question 8

Introspective Illusion Experiment

Answer 8

In the first and best-known of the experiments in the study, participants were given what they thought was an essay written by a student for a political science exam on a controversial topic—Fidel Castro’s Cuba. Some participants received a Pro-Castro essay and others an Anti-Castro one, and they were all asked to judge the true attitude of the essay writer toward the topic.

The experiment provided evidence of the fundamental attribution error, since participants who read the Pro-Castro essay were significantly more likely to assume that the student who wrote it was himself Pro-Castro, compared to those who read the Anti-Castro essay, even when they were told that the student who wrote the essay had no choice with regard to its topic.

Question 9

Awareness of learning: EG: Does lecturer ‘fluency’ improve our learning?

Answer 9

Research method:
Two sets of students viewed videos of lecturers (talking about cat biology)
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Condition 1:
Lecturer stood upright, maintained eye contact, spoke fluently, no notes
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Condition 2:
Lecturer sat, slumped, looked away, spoke haltingly, read from notes
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Ten-minute distractor task
Then asked to recall all they could from the lecture
And asked to estimate their own learning, results found they had VERY little difference in the recall of the lecturers teaching as compared to the predicted outcomes (being a big difference)

DUNNING KRUGER EFFECT:
ANOTHER EXAMPLE: how people over estimated their performance in a test by 25%(humour, grammar, logic) and then the top achievrs only slightly underestimated their performance.

Question 12

Effects of Dunning Kruger:

Answer 12

• The Dunning–Kruger effect has been described as relevant for various practical matters, but disagreements exist about the magnitude of its influence. Inaccurate self-assessment can lead people to make bad decisions, such as choosing a career for which they are unfit or engaging in dangerous behaviour. It may also inhibit the affected from addressing their shortcomings to improve themselves. In some cases, the associated overconfidence may have positive side effects, like increasing motivation and energy