self-concept and self-bias

Question 1

What is the self-awareness test

Answer 1

· Mirror test
· Some animals, including some monkeys do not recognise themselves in the mirrors
· Apes recognise themselves in the mirror
Children only start recognising themselves around 18 months

Question 2

Bem’s (1972) self-perception theory

Answer 2

· I care about the environments -> I recycle
· I recycle -> I guess I care about the environment
· Attitude follows behaviour rather than determines it
We do not access our own feelings and attitudes but infer them from our action

Question 3

What did Chaiken and Baldwin (1981) find about recycling questions?

Answer 3

· Have you ever recycled? -> Likely to report environment-friendly behaviour
· Do you always recycle? -> Unlikely to report environment-friendly behaviour
· Participants with less consistent attitudes towards the environment (as measured at a pre-test a week earlier) were influenced by the type of questions. If received the ones easier to respond to positively, described themselves as more pro-environment

Question 4

Bem’s theory and children

Answer 4

· Drew for fun
· Drew in order to receive a reward (certificate w/ seal and ribbon)
· Drew for fun but received a surprise reward afterwards (certificate w/ seal and ribbon)
· Observation ~ a week later how long children chose to draw during free time period
Having extrinsic motivation leads people to infer that they don’t do something out of intrinsic motivation (Lepper, Greene, & Nisbett (1973)

Question 5

Bem and virtual reality

Answer 5

· Attractive/unattractive avatar
Avatar tracked participant’s motion 
· Measures:
How close to the research assistant participants moved 
· How much they said when asked
· to introduce themselves 
· Participants with a more attractive avatar walked closer and talked more 
Yee & Bailenson (2007)

Question 6

Self-awareness and self-observation

· Anagram test

Answer 6

Allocated 5 minutes but experimenter not back until 10 minutes after
· Self-aware: sit next to a mirror and hear own self introduction in loop
· Non-self-aware: no mirror, another person’s self-introduction in loop
· Self-aware less likely to cheat than non-self-aware
Diener and Wallbom (1976)

Question 7

How do we conceptualise ourselves?

Answer 7

· One way we conceptualise ourselves is by observing our own behaviour (Bem, 1972)
Looking glass self (Cooley, 1902) - We imagine how others would see us and judge ourselves accordingly Also relates to statements others make about self (I’m always told I’m funny…)

Question 8

Self-categorisation theory (Turner)

Answer 8

· Social Identity Theory: we always conceptualize ourselves as part of a group, and so in-line
· with that ingroup and in contrast to outgroups
· Is there a self that we activate or conceptualise?
· How would you introduce yourself to a friend of your parents? How would you introduce yourself to a classmate? How would you introduce yourself at a party?
· People have multiple self-conceptions
· These self-conceptions are at different groups levels
Different self-conceptions would be activated in different situations

Question 9

Self-categorisation theory - gender differences?

Answer 9

· Female participants
Male/female primes (words flash, indicate flash location on screen)
· How pleasant do you find the following activities?
- Math activities (e.g., doing an algebra problem set)
- Arts activities (e.g., writing an essay)
· How pleasant do most students like yourself find the following activities?
· Women prefer arts and men prefer maths, same results shown when asked about other people
· Steele and Ambady (2006)

Question 10

Self-categorisation theory - stereotypes

Answer 10

Stereotype salient 
· Rate:
· Men are gifted in Mathematics
· Women are gifted in Mathematics
.... ... 
· I am gifted in Mathematics
· I am gifted in Arts
....
· Recall marks in Arts and Maths – was found that marks were higher in art for women and higher in maths for men
	Stereotype not salient 
· Rate:
· I am gifted in Mathematics 
· I am gifted in Arts 
	…
· Men are gifted in Mathematics 
· Women are gifted in Mathematics 
	....
· Recall marks in Arts and Maths
· When gender identity salient – memory shifts in the direction of stereotype 
Chatard, Guimond and Selimbegovic (2007)

Question 11

Stereotype threat?

Answer 11

· We have multiple self-concepts that are differentially activated in each context + looking glass self
· Asian female participants in the US answered a questionnaire that highlights their gender (e.g., whether their residence halls were co-ed or single sex), their ethnicity (e.g., how many languages they spoke), or neither (e.g., whether they lived on or off campus)
· Math task
· Performance was best after the ethnicity prime and worst after the gender prime
Shih, Pittinsky and Ambady (1999)

Question 12

The better-than-average effect

Answer 12

· College board exam in the US 1976-77
· Rated own performance on percentile
· Leadership: 70% above median, 2% below median
· Athletic ability: 60% above median, 6% below
· Ability to get along with others: 100% median or above, 25% in the top 1%
College professors - 94% say they do above average work (Cross, 1977)

Question 13

The better-than-average effect: Rated abilities vs. peers on:

Answer 13

· Ambiguous positive: sophisticated, sensitive, quick…
· Less ambiguous positive: mathematical, well read, punctual…
· Ambiguous negative: neurotic, inconsistent, naïve…
· Less ambiguous negative: sarcastic, gossipy, bragging…
Mechanism:
· Focus on facets one is good in (ambiguity matters)
· Flattering comparison target
Dunning, Meyerowitz and Holzberg (1999)

Question 14

What does self-evaluation show?

Answer 14

· Positive self-evaluation predicts higher success even if a bit inflated
· Sense of control
Optimism
· It is those low in self-esteem or mildly depressed tend to have more accurate self-perceptions
Taylor and Brown (1988)

Question 15

Cultural differences in self-concept

Answer 15

· British and Australian participants gave more individualistic (idiocentric) and fewer groups descriptions than Malaysian participants
Bochner (1994)

Question 16

Correspondence bias/fundamental attribution error?

Answer 16

· Cold War era
· Read an essay pro/anti-Castro
· Political science class: forced to defend a position / any position Rate how pro/anti-Castro the writer is (scale: 10-70)
· People don’t fully account for the constraints of the circumstances when judging others’ behaviour
Jones and Harris (1967)

Question 17

Cultural differences in attribution – explanations

Answer 17

· Cultural differences in explaining behaviour
· Dispositional explanations: Western > Eastern (Miller, 1984)
· Contextual explanations: Eastern > Western (Miller, 1984)
Greater Fundamental Attribution Error in Western than Eastern cultures (Choi & Nisbett, 1998; Krull et al., 1999

Question 18

Self-bias – attention

Answer 18

· People are unable to report any of what they hear in the ignored ear
· Dichotic listening task – listening to two different conversations in each ear but need to concentrate on one
· More likely to know what went on in the other conversation if their name was mentioned
Moray (1959)

Question 19

· Search task: where is the O?

Answer 19

· Saw 3 Qs and 1 O, had to locate where the O was
· Cue: correct/incorrect location x own name/other name
· Own name facilitated response more than another’s name
· Own name in the correct location also increased accuracy
Alexopoulos, Muller, Ric & Marendaz (2012)

Question 20

· Search task: where is the O? (name shown for shorter amount of time)

Answer 20

· Is it due to explicit attention?
· Follow up task
· Same task BUT name only appears for 33ms and masked before and after (not consciously visible)
Bigger cuing effect for own name (difficulty of ignoring own name?)

Question 21

· Search task: where is the O? : CONCLUSION

Answer 21

Despite being warned to ignore name because its location is always the opposite of correct one, participants are more distracted by their name than another’s name. No facilitation over another’s name when location is correct, and they’re told that explicitly.

Question 22

Attention: recognising faces

Answer 22

• Search for your own face vs. a stranger’s face
• Faster for own face
• Same result found when pictures were upside-down and angle was changed
  Tong and Nakayama (1999)

Question 23

Self-bias – reference point

Answer 23

· Participants were asked:
· Do most students (>50%) exercise at least weekly?
· Do most students (>50%) watch TV/Netflix/… at least 2 hours a day? Do many students (>20%) cheat in their coursework?
· There’s a high correlation between people’s predictions about others and their own behaviour
· Katz and Allport, 1931
Supported by Ross, Greene and House (1976) – asked about different traits and asked how much they thought they were like them. More likely to say other people hold the same traits as you

Question 24

Self-bias – reference point: sandwich board

Answer 24

· Participants told it’s an experiment about the efficacy of different communication methods.
· Asked to walk around campus for 30min wearing a sign “Eat at Joe’s” / ”Repent”.
· Their task is to count how many people approach, their gender, and whether their comments are positive/negative/neutral.
· Told they’re allow to withdraw from study.
· Those who agreed to wear the sign believed that other people would also wear the sign, same found for those who refused
· Would you agree to do that?
· What % of student do you think would agree to walk around with the sign?
Ross, Greene and House, 1976

Question 25

Self-bias – reference point: friends

Answer 25

· Think of a particular friend of the same sex as yourself, that you know very well
· How similar is your friend to you in shyness/friendliness/height/…?
· How similar are you to your friend in shyness/friendliness/height/…?
· The self is the habitual reference point
· Higher similarity comparing friend to you, lower for self to friend
Holyoak and Gordan, 1983

Question 26

Self-bias – learning

Answer 26

· Shapes associated to themselves, friends and strangers
· Shown shape with different labels, asked if it was correct or incorrect
· People are faster and more accurate to identify self, slower with stranger
· Even an arbitrary association with self is learned better
Sui, He and Humphreys, 2012

Question 27

Self-bias – memory

Answer 27

· Married couples:
· Rated individually the % that they did of making breakfast, cleaning
· dishes, cleaning the house, buying groceries, taking care of children… 27 out of 37 couples had combined proportions >100% …
· Recalled occasions when they and their partner performed each
· Participants remembered more occasions of them doing something than their partner
· Many reasons: we have more information about what we did (e.g., episodic information) but do we also encode better self-related information?
Ross and Sicoly (1979)

Question 28

Cunningham, Turk, Macdonald and Macrae (2008); shopping

Answer 28

· Pairs of participants assigned shopping bags.
· They take turns in sorting items into the shopping bags according to sticker colour
Even though ownership is temporary and fictitious, better memory for “own” items regardless of who moved them to the cart

Question 29

Self-bias – preference

Answer 29

· Imagine that Alex/you—was/were researching life on a planet in a distant solar system called “Wugworld”. This planet is inhabited by many alien creatures, some of which are predators, and others prey…The creatures on Wugworld are called “Niffites” and “Luupites”. Alex/you has/have already discovered a fact about Niffites and Luupites:
· 1. Niffites are at least twice as large as Luppites.
· Suppose Alex/you has/have a theory, based on the fact above:
· Niffites hunt, kill, and eat Luupites - How likely is this theory to be true?
· 2. Niffites have powerful teeth and dangerous spikes on their heads How likely is Alex’s/your theory to be true?
· More likely to be convinced by your own theory than Alex’s theory
Gregg, Mahadevan and Sedikides (2017)

Question 30

Self-bias – endowment effect

Answer 30

· Mug vs candy: found that there was no preference between mug or candy BUT if you were given a mug, less likely to want candy. Same shown when they had candy, didn’t want mug. Place more value on things you already have
· Status quo bias and loss aversion might partially explains it, but also we value more things that are associated with us (Knsethsch (1989))
Capuchin monkeys also show the endowment effect: they refuse to trade food for equally good or slightly better food (but understand trade, so would trade for far superior food) (Lakshminaryanan, Chen & Santos (2008))

Question 31

Self-bias – cultural differences

Answer 31

· Shown a picture of a face (you or a friend) and asked to say whether it was right or left facing
· British participants are faster to determine the orientation of their own face vs. other’s (schoolmate). Chinese participants do not show this advantage. Sui, Lui & Han (2009)
British and Chinese participants also differ in brain response to self vs. other stimuli

Question 32

From self to ingroup bias

Answer 32

· Shapes associated to different sports teams, including their own uni team
· Self-bias extends to close people and ingroup members (though not as strong as for self)
Moradi, Sui, Hewstone & Humphreys (2015)