Self Regulation Flashcards
Self-regulation, The “I” and ME
• The “I” is what allows us to “self-regulate”
o The “I” chooses what goals to pursue
o The “I” controls thoughts, feelings, and behaviors to reach those goals
Self-awareness theory
• When we focus attention on ourselves, we compare our current behavior to our internal standards
• This leads us to either:
o Act more in line with our standards OR
o Escape from self-awareness
• Step 1: you come across a self-focusing cue in the environment such as a mirror, a camera, or an audience
• Step 2: this cue creates a state of self-awareness—you become aware of and think about yourself
• Step 3: you compare your current thoughts or behavior to your internal standards or expectations for yourself;
o If they match, feel great
o If they don’t either:
• Change your behavior so it matches your standard for yourself→feel great
• If you cant or won’t change behavior, feel terrible→flee from state of self-awareness
Cheating Study
• College students asked to take a test in a private room, and to stop when the bell goes off
• Ind. Variable: mirror in the room (high-self awareness) or no mirror (low self-awareness)
• Dep. Variable: what percentage of students cheated (continued working after the bell went off)?
• Results: mirror in the room: 7% cheated, no mirror: 71%
• People were more likely to regulate their behavior when they remain self aware→all participants shared the same internal standard that cheating is wrong
If people had different standards, would they act differently when self-awareness is high?
Sex-guilt Study
• Ps were either high or low in “sex guilt” (i.e. negative attitude towards their own sexuality)
• They were asked to look at pornographic material
• Ind. Variable: mirror in the room (high self-awareness) OR no mirror (low self-awareness)
• Dep. Variable: enjoyment of the pornographic material
• Results:
o High sex guilt woman hated the pornographic material when self-aware
o Low sex guilt woman loved the pornographic material when self-aware
o High and low equally enjoyed when low self-aware
Escaping from self-awareness
When our behavior and our attitudes don’t match, self-awareness is unpleasant. If we are unable or unwilling to reduce this mismatch, we sometimes distract ourselves. Ex. alcohol abuse, TV.
Goals
- Mental representations of desired end-states that guide and energize behavior
- How are they “turned on” in our minds?
- Often we choose them, but they can also be turned on without our awareness
High-expectations Study
• Ps asked who has high expectations for you and low expectations for you
• Ind. Variable: primed subliminally with the name of the person who has high OR low expectations
o Then asked to solve word puzzles
• Dep. Variable: performance on word puzzles
• Ps primed for someone with high expectations worked twice as long and solved twice as many puzzles
Traveling in Time
• Goal pursuit depends on seeing ourselves in the future
• Two interesting phenomena related to mental time travel
Temporal construal level
• Fancy words meaning, essentially how we think about events in time
• Thinking about an event in the near future?
We think about it in concrete terms
• Thinking about an event in the distant future?
Think about it in abstract terms
Job Choice Study
Ps choose between: Job 1 initially fun but boring in long run OR Job 2 initially boring but fun in the long run
Ind. Variable: job starts either next week (near future) OR in a year (distant future)
Dep. Variable: Choice of jobs
Results: when making a choice in near future Ps preferred Job 1; distant future Ps preferred Job 2
Affective forecasting
o Affective forecasting
• Seeing ourselves in the future
• Emotional rewards of different choices
• Were like really bad weathermen
Impact Bias
overestimate the emotional impact of future events on our lives (both positive and negative)
Focalism
tendency we have to focus to much on the life event while ignoring other aspects of lives
Immune Neglect
we have a psychological immune system with the internal defense to bounce back from defense
Difficulties in Self-regulation
Trying too hard: ironic processing
• Why is thought control difficult?
o Automatic-monitor: effortless search for unwanted thought
o Controlled-monitor: effortful suppression of unwanted thought when it is detected
o When we are tired or pre-occupied, the controlled process doesn’t work, but the automatic process does
o Ironically, suppressed thoughts become more accessible
Ironic processing
Trying too hard
