Midterm 1 Flashcards
Associative Networks
knowledge is organized as a metaphorical network of cognitive concepts interconnected by links (links vary in strenght)
Spreading activation
when one piece of knowledge id activated other concepts that are linked with it are also activated. If link is strong they will be activated quicker
Accessibility of self-knowledge
- Frequency of activation (self-schemata)
- Recency of activation (working self-concept)
Study: those in extroverted condition described themselves and acted more extraverted
Study 2: participants in rude primer were faster to interrupt and more likely to interrupt at all
Self-schemata
aspect of self that are more central (core self)
It explains consistency in self-descriptions and behaviour across situations
Self-schemata can change if characteristic is activated enough
Self-perception theory
some aspects of our self concept are formed by making inferences about ourselves while observing our own behaviour
Looking glass self
How we see ourselves comes from how others see us
Social comparison
we compare ourselves with others to form conclusions about our relative standing on attributes, abilities, opinions,…
Social identity theory
we draw parts of our identity from the social groups we belong to
Moderator
The relationship between the independent and dependent variable is
affected by another variable
A moderator influences the strength or direction of a relationship between
variables
Interaction effect is also called moderation
Self-complexity
- High self-complexity: many self-aspects that are relatively distinct
from each other - Low self-complexity: few self-aspects that have a high degree of
overlap with each other
Implications of Self-Complexity:
* Affective spillover
* Affective extremity for low self-complexity
* High self-complexity as a stress buffer
Affective spillover
- Because of links between self-aspects, emotions associated with one
self-aspect will “spillover” to other self-aspects - More affective spillover for people with low self-complexity
Affect extremity
- Low self-complexity: Greater spillover causes more extreme
emotional reactions and changes in self-esteem * In response to both negative and positive life events - High self-complexity: Less spillover allows for more emotional
stability
Study:
* Low self-complexity showed largest change in mood and selfesteem following failure/success feedback
* Evidence of spillover and affective extremity
Study 2:
Low self-complexity associated with greater variation in
emotion ratings over time
Self-complexity as a stress buffer
- High self-complexity may serve as a buffer against negative
consequences of stressful life events * May explain why some people are more resilient in the face of stress
Study:
* Following stressful events, people high in self-complexity (vs. low in selfcomplexity) showed: * Less depression * Less perceived stress * Fewer physical symptoms of illness (including flu!) * No difference in # of stressful events experienced between low and high selfcomplexity people
* Evidence that self-complexity buffers against negative effects of
stress
Self concept clarity (SCC)
Extent to which the contents of the self-concept are:
* clearly defined
* consistent
* stable
Reflects the extent to which you feel like you know who you are
SCC is unrelated to self-complexity
* A person could be high in self-complexity but low in SCC
High SCC associated with well-being
Social change lower SCC if you feel negatively about it and if big change
Individualist culture characteristics
- Common in Western countries
- Attending to self, self-assertion, uniqueness
- Distinguishing self from others
- “the squeaky wheel gets the grease”
- Personal identity (traits, states, behaviors)
- Self-interest, personal happiness
- “My way”
Parenting:
* Infants spend lots of time with mothers, and
not with other adults or children
* Mothers teach infants early on to spend
time on their own and not depend on
others *
Toys play an important role of distraction
* Babies are expected to start sleeping alone
without parents, possibly in own room,
starting at 3 months
* Parents talk to infant about what a person
did during a day or how they feel
* Emotional self-expression is encouraged
* Babies are encouraged to smile and to make
positive vocalizations
Collectivistic culture characteristics
- Common in East Asian countries
- Attending to group, group harmony, fitting in
- Fitting self with others
- “the nail that stands out gets pounded down”
- Collective identity (social roles and relationships)
- Social happiness, suspension of self-interest
- “The right way”
Parenting:
* Infants spend lots of time with multiple
caregivers and other children
* Mothers teach infants early on that
obedience and respect are important
* Co-sleeping for the first couple years of life
* Conversations with children are directive
and instructional
* Parenting is often anticipatory, rather than waiting for infant to express a need
* Emotional self-expression is criticized and obedience is praised
Substistence theory
The way people in a culture historically made a
living influences culture
Farming cultures are more interdependent:
* Many people have to work on one field
* People have to share the harvest of farming for the rest of the year
Herding and fishing cultures are more independent:
* Food is more consistent so have to negotiate with others less
* Herders rely on working with others less
* Can move if conflict arises
Differences in cognition based on culture
Individualistic Cultures:
Analytic thinking:
* Focus on objects
* Objects exist independent of
context
* Attributes
* Rules and categories used to explain behavior and make predictions
(chicken and cox together)
Collectivistic Cultures:
Holistic thinking:
* Focus on context as a whole and
associations
* Attend to relationships among objects and relationships among objects and context
* Relationships are used to explain
behavior and make predictions
(chicken and grass together)
Field Dependence/ Independence
Degree to which a person’s perception is
affected by the context or surrounding
environment (“field”):
* Field dependent: More affected by
context/environment
* Field independent: Less affected by
context/environment
East asians are more field dependent
Cultural differences in attribution
Attribution:
* American newspapers more likely to attribute responsibility to individuals (disposition)
* Japanese newspapers more likely to attribute responsibility to organizations (situation)
Cultural differences in emotions
Emotion:
Western Cultures: More emotionally expressive
East Asian Cultures: More emotionally restrained
Western cultures: Suppressing emotions is distressing and can lead
to negative mental and physical health outcomes
* Personal expression is valued
East Asian cultures: Suppressing emotions may not lead to negative
mental and physical health outcomes
* Emotional restraint is valued
Western Cultures:
* More emotionally expressive
* Value maximizing positive experiences
and minimizing negative experiences
* Emphasis on socially disengaging
emotions :
* Emotions that focus on self and
distinctiveness
* E.g., pride, feeling superior, frustration,
self-esteem
* More important for happiness (vs.
socially engaging emotions)
Eastern Cultures:
* More emotionally restrained
* Value a balance of positive and negative
emotional states
* Emphasis on socially engaging emotions:
* Emotions related to fitting in and
connecting with others
* E.g., wanting to feel close, respect for others, guilt, shame
* More important for happiness (vs. socially
disengaging emotions)
Illusions about the self
- Overly positive self-evaluations
- Illusions of control
- Unrealisitc optimism bias
Study on university suggest that illusions lead to better outcomes
Study on AIDS showed that optimism encourages better coping and health behaviours, also much shorter survival for people with high degree of acceptance
Higher self-esteem in western countries
Self-enhancement
Motive to see ourselves positively
- Regulates self-esteem
- Guides people toward situations in which they believe they can excel or can promote their positive qualities
Tendency to maintain unrealistic positive views of ourselves
Self-serving attributional bias
Use more positive than negative traits to describe yourself
Forget negative feedback about ourselves, remember successes more easily
Engage in downward social comparisons
Use of self-serving attributional bias (positive results due to us, negative results due to circumstances)
See our talents as unique, our weaknesses as common
Evidence:
1. Better than average effect (the more desirable a trait, the more above average they see themselves, and more likely to rate trait as descriptive of themselves)
2. Rate ourselves better than objectively warranted (overestimate abilities in various domains
Illusions of control
Believe you have more control on outcome of dice if you’re the one throwing them, or that choosing own lottery tickets will lead to better outcome
Unrealisitc optimism bias
Think that you are less likely than others to experience negative events, and more likely than others to experience positive events
Pancultural self-enhancement
People will self-enhance on traits that are important and consistent with cultural values
Study showed americans self-enhanced more on individualistic traits, and Japenese more on collectivistic traits
2 self-enhancement strategies
- Advancement: increasing how you see yourself (people with high self-esteem)
- Protection: decreasing how you see others (people with low self-esteem) ie. self-handicapping: telling things to others that allow you to avoid responsibility for failure (failed an exam but told your friend you didn’t study so they don’t think you’re stupid)
Feeling holier-than-thou
People believe to be more moral, kind, and altruistic than the average person (better than average effect but on morality)
Daffodil Days Study: suggested that feeling holier-than-thou is due to errors of judgements about the self, not of others
Study 2: people overestimate the likelihood that they would choose the kinder action by an average of 32% (only 4% for others)
Case-based vs Base-rate info
Types of information on which to base predictions for future behaviour:
Case-based: evident relevant to the specific case or person under consideration
Base-rate: evidence about the distribution of behaviour in similar or past situations
Case-based fallacy: we assign greater value to case-based and ignore base-rate
We use case-based when making predictions about ourselves, and use base-rate for average person’s behaviour
Study about donations:
evidence for base-rate fallacy: base-rate info improved accuracy of predictions of peer’s behaviour but not for own behaviour (held on to case-based and ignored base-rate)
Anchoring bias
Relying too heavily on the first piece of information that comes to mind when making a decision (judgment is biased toward info that can easily be retrieved)
Responsible for holier-than-thou, and worse than average effects
Study showed that better-than-average used in easy task, and worse-than-average used in hard tasks
Effects of positive illusions
++ : higher well-being, higher achievement, more relationship satisfaction, better at coping with challenges
– : more boasting (alienate others and lead to loneliness), set unrealistically high goals (lead to failure), no reason to self-improve (miss opportunities)
Meta-analysis showed that they are good for personal adjustment, but bad for relationships
Positive self-presentations
People self-present differently depending on whether others can verify their claims or not (self-enhance as much as we can)
Therefore we are less likely to self-enhance with friends
This process is automatic
Study on women: no change in self-description is man was ugly, but changed to whatever they thought he would like if attractive
Self-verification
We want others to see our real selves so we can feel seen and known
- It fulfills our need for coherence
- It ensures smooth social interactions
Symbolic self-completion theory
Receiving feedback that is inconsistent with an important self-view feels threatening
We will compensate by engaging in a task that confirms our self view
Study: evidence that we bolster an identity trait if it’s important to us
Self-verification vs Self-enhancement
Self-verification chosen over self-enhancement in study
Low self esteem people don’t stay in relationships where the other sees them too positively
Means that desire for self-verification explains why we tolerate not being liked (as long as they see me for who i am)
Expressive accuracy
An individual’s ability to accurately express their thoughts, emotions, and personality. Stable ability
There is more variability in targets’ ability to accurately express themselves than in perceiver’ ability to accurately read targets
Can be stopped because of display rules
It’s good for marital satisfaction and it helps elicit social support
Meta-perception
a person’s perception of what others think of them
requires making inferences based on ambiguous cues
People are relatively good at guessing people’s general opinion, but not good at differentiating between specific people
False-consensus effect
people tend to over-estimate the overlap between their self-views and the views of others (how you perceive yourself influences ho you think others perceive you)
Michelangelo effect
close relationship partners shift each other’s behaviour and self-appraisals toward desired ideals
ie: you think i’m reliable, you are treating me like i’m reliable, i become more reliable
Stereotype threat
The fear of confirming negative stereotypes about one’s group often undermines one’s performance and thus confirms the stereotype
Defensive reaction to threats to the self
Dismiss/minimize the threat (everyone makes mistakes sometimes)
Biased perception of information (self-serving attributional bias, attributing poor grade to poor teaching)
Compensatory eviction (emphasizing certainty and conviction about unrelated attitudes, values, goals. Hardening of attitudes)
Benefit: maintain positive self view
Limitation: prevents us from accepting negative experiences and learning from them
Cognitive dissonance and self-affirmation
COGNITIVE DISSONANCE: a behaviour that contradict an important value will arouse an unpleasant state of dissonance
People adjust attitude to justify behaviour to reduce dissonance arousal
Affirming an important value will eliminate cognitive dissonance and the attitude changes that result
Self-affirmation serves as a buffer against threats to our values by allowing us to restore overall self-integrity. Means that we can affirm domains unrelated to threat to preserve self-integrity, but the domain needs to be relevant to us (This is more general than symbolic self-completion). We use self-affirmation on less important threatened self-aspects, and symbolic on more important
Personal uncertainty as threat
Identity crisis that arises from awareness of having inconsistent or unclear self-relevant cognition
Compensatory conviction: we tend to cope with the threat of personal uncertainty by emphasizing certainty in unrelated attitudes.
Self-affirmation eliminates compensatory conviction
Stereotyping and prejudice as threats
Threats to the self may lead people to endorce prejudicial attitudes in an attempt to restore self-integrity (they can make people feel better about themselves)
Study: threats to the self led to prejudicial attitude against stereotypes outgroup member
Those who experienced threat to the self and rates Jewish candidate showed largest increase in self-esteem
Threat to the self led to prejudical attitude which increased self-esteem
Suggests that prejudice partly stems from a desire to restore self-integrity
Study 2: self affirmation eliminated prejudicial attitudes against others
Mortality salience as threat to the self
Terror management theory: people specifically feel threatened by their own mortality, so to allay their anxiety, they subscribe to meaningful world-views that allow them to feel enduring self-worth
Mortality salience: knowing our inevitable death
Mortality salience leads to worldview protection (associate with people that share these views and not others)
Study: mortality salience led to harsher punishment of moral transgression
(covid increased mortality salience for everyone)
Study: self-affirmation eliminated typical terror management defense strategy of derogating people that share views
