Self & Social Cognition Flashcards
Cognitive constructs
Determine how we think about ourselves and how we think others see us
Self esteem
Multi-domain approach
What is the main domain at any age to influence self esteem?
Appearance
Domain of self esteem in children
School work, social acceptance, sports, behaviours and PHYSICAL APPEARANCE
Domain of self esteem in young adults
Job competence, romantic appeal, close friendships, appearance
Looking glass self
The way we think others see us, we use other peoples reactions to self appraise
Social Comparison Theory
Festinger - argues a drive for self evaluation
Compare with others - often those we regularly see and are important in our lives
Validates our own attitudes and self esteem
Has a self-serving bias as we often downward comparison to make us feel better
Low self esteem cycle
Low self esteem–>negative expectation –> low effort, high anxiety –> failure –> self blame –> low self esteem
Development of self concept
Young children –> description revolves around appearance, gender age
Older children –> includes likes, feelings, internal attracts
Adolescents –> more subtle descriptions, abstract and complex
Theory of mind
Ideas about own and others beliefs and feelings which are acquired at about 4 years old! We can judge what others are feeling largely through their eyes and gaze - this is absent in autism
Impression Forming
Results from physical appearance
Recency and primacy effects work! Hence first and last impressionsn do count!
Stereotyping Stages
1) Identify category or group
2) Assign features to people in that group
3) Generalise features to all in that group
Stereotyping
Allows us to assimilate large amounts of information and apply to situations –> right a lot amount of the time. This is a cognitive miser! But may make discrimination and prejucice
Often slow to change
Interpersonal attraction determining factors
Physical attraction: ‘Halo affect’ –> if they are beautiful may also think of as warm, outgoing, healthy etc
Proximity
Familiarity
Similarity –> assortative mating where we are attracted to those who are similar to us and as you stay together you become more similar!
