Self theories in personality: lecture 2 Flashcards
Kitayama and Markus
culture and interdependent vs. independent self construal
Western cultures of self
think of self as separate and distinct from others, and are also likely to focus on opportunities for advancing and promoting the distinct self. Deceptive self-enhancement is an effective way to promote this distinct self, especially if one is generally clueless about one’s own limitations
Eastern cultures
self is embedded in relationships with others, and are likely to focus on preventing loss of face in these relationships. Impression Management is an effective way to protect this relational self, especially if one is unusually aware of how one comes across in public
East-asian interdependent self-construal
self is connected to and embedded in relationships with others and social contexts
asian interdependent self-construal
leads to awareness of ones behavior relative to group belongingness, group harmony, and social standards, roles, and obligations
self-enhancement of the Western, Independent self
lot of pressure to enhance self when it is an autonomous agent that is separate from its social context, and is composed of a self-contained set of relatively immutable attributes that are presumed to both cause and regulate behavior
self-serving bias
take credit for success and deny responsibility for failure
false uniqueness effect
overestimate the uniqueness of ones own positive attributes
Akimoto and Sanbonmatsu
found that Japanese-Americans tended to be more self-effacing in their descriptions of successful performances than european-americans
* their tendency to downplay success cause them to be evaluated less positively by others
Kitayama et al. (1997)
found that americans regarded successes to be more relevant to self-esteem than failures, and Japanese tended to see failures as being more relevant to self-esteem than success
Heine et al. (2001)
found that failure on a task caused both Canadians and americans to reduce effort on that specific task and to disparage it. conversely, failure caused Japanese subjects to try harder and persevere longer on that specific task, an to regard the task as more important and diagnostic
self-improvement
reflect on the self. Identify weaknesses relative to shared standards of excellence and seek to improve them
Kitayama
*Americans elaborate positive aspects and deemphasize negative aspects
* Japanese elaborate negative aspects and deemphasize positive aspects
The voluntary settlement hypothesis of independent self-construal postulates that
- voluntary settlers are likely to be autonomous, independent, goal-oriented folks
- frontier life was so rough that if you weren’t independent and goal-oriented when you started, you learned to be
- once established, dispositional lay theories of independence are ingrained in social life and transmitted to future generations
self selection hypothesis
voluntary settlers are likely to be autonomous, independent, goal-oriented folks
reinforcement hypothesis
frontier life was so rough that if you weren’t independent and goal-oriented when you started, you learned to be
institutionalization hypothesis
once established, dispositional lay theories of independence are ingrained in social life and transmitted to future generations
Hokkaido hypothesis
they become autonomous, independent, and goal-oriented then transmit these dispositions to future generations
Hokkaido
Study 1: hypothesis: if folks are psychologically independent, their happiness should derive mostly from achieving personal goals and feeling proud
*if folks are psychologically interdependent, their happiness should derive primarily from feeling friendly with others in important social groups
Results: the pride-happiness link was especially strong among americans and hokkaido-born Japanese
*the feelings-happiness link was especially strong among Japanese kids raised on the Japanese mainland
Hokkaido
Study 2: whether the voluntary-settler descended Hokkaido-born were more like Americans or Japanese in their attributional tendencies by looking at baeball
* subjects read about a professional baseball player who engaged in either desirable or undesirable behavior then asked to rate the extent that the behavior in question was caused by internal or external factors
Results: both Hokkaido-born and Americans were more likely to attribute behavior to internal causes
socially desirable responding
responding in a manner that casts the self in a favorable light
self-deceptive enhancement
try to convince self and others that you are skilled, competent, or attractive
impression management
try to appear more normatively appropriate to self and others
individualism
self is a separate and autonomous self that leads to the development of positive attributes that are both put on public display and privately affirmed
collectivism
(interdependent self-construal) self is socially embedded self that leads to an awareness of ones behavior relative to group belongingness, group harmony, and social standards
Lalwani et. al.
utilized both american and Hong Kong subjects as representatives of individualists and collectivists, and measured individualism vs. collectivism as an individual difference within a single culture
Results: DE was consistently associated with individualism and IM was consistently associated with collectivism
