Self & Social Understanding

Question 1

social cognition

Answer 1

how children come to understand their multifaceted social world

Question 2

self-recognition

Answer 2

identification of self as a physically unique being

Question 3

scale errors

Answer 3

attempting to do things that their body size makes impossible

Question 4

categorical self

Answer 4

children classify themselves on the basis of perceptually distinct attributes and behaviors–age, gender, physical characteristics

Question 5

remembered self

Answer 5

life story narrative grants the child autobiographical memory

Question 6

enduring self

Answer 6

view of self persisting over time

Question 7

inner self

Answer 7

private thoughts and imaginings

Question 8

perspective taking

Answer 8

capacity to imagine what others may be thinking and feeling and to distinguish those viewpoints from one’s own

Question 9

desire theory of mind

Answer 9

they think that people always act in ways consistent with their desires and do not realize that less obvious, more interpretive mental states, such as beliefs, also affect behavior

Question 10

belief-desire theory of mind

Answer 10

more advanced view in which both beliefs and desires determine actions

Question 11

recursive thought

Answer 11

requires the ability to view a situation from at least two perspectives–that is, to reason simultaneously about what two or more people are thinking, a form of perspective taking

Question 12

self-concept

Answer 12

set of attributes, abilities, attitudes and values that an individual beliefs defines who s/he is

Question 13

social comparisons

Answer 13

judgements of their own appearance, abilities and behavior in relation to those of others

Question 14

generalized other

Answer 14

blend of what we imagine important people in our lives think of us

Question 15

self-esteem

Answer 15

judgements we make about our own worth and the feelings associated with those judgements

Question 16

attributions

Answer 16

common everyday explanations for the causes of behavior

Question 17

achievement motivation

Answer 17

the tendency to persist at challenging tasks

Question 18

mastery-oriented attributions

Answer 18

crediting success to ability and trying hard

Question 19

incremental view of ability

Answer 19

ability can increase through effort

Question 20

learned helplessness

Answer 20

attribute their failures to ability

Question 21

entity view of ability

Answer 21

they cannot be improved by trying hard

Question 22

attribution retraining

Answer 22

encourages learned-helpless children to believe that they can overcome failure by exerting more effort

Question 23

identity

Answer 23

crucial to becoming a productive, content adult; constructing an identity involves defining who you are, what you value, and the directions you choose to pursue in life

Question 24

identity achievement

Answer 24

commitment to values, beliefs and goals following a period of exploration

Question 25

identity moratorium

Answer 25

exploration without having reached commitment

Question 26

identity foreclosure

Answer 26

commitment in the absence of exploration

Question 27

identity diffusion

Answer 27

apathetic state characterized by lack of both exploration and commitment

Question 28

person perception

Answer 28

refers to the way we size up the qualities of people with whom we are familiar

Question 29

social problem solving

Answer 29

generating and applying strategies that prevent or resolve disagreements, resulting in outcomes that are both acceptable to others and beneficial to self