Social Intro Flashcards
Briefly define social psychology
The scientific study of how individuals think, feel and behave in a social context
Define self-concept
How do people come to know themselves - The sum of total beliefs people have about themselves
Define self-esteem
How do people evaluate themselves - an affective component of the self consisting of a person’s positive and negative self evaluations
Define the overjustification effect
The tendency for intrinsic motivation to diminish for activities that have become associated with a reward or other extrinsic factors
Describe the two-factor theory of emotion
physiological arousal + social cue = emotions
What are the four methods to enhance self-esteem
1) Biased self-serving cognitions
2) Self-handicapping strategies
3) Basking in reflected glory
4) Downward comparisons
Explain the “Biased self-serving cognitions” method of enhancing self-esteem
attributing success to ourselves and failure to environment/others. “better than average effect”
Explain the “better-than-average-effect”
Viewing positive traits as more descriptive of oneself than negative traits. Overestimating their contribution to a team effort when team performance was successful. Predicting a brighter future. Seeking more information about ones strengths than weaknesses
Explain the “self-handicapping strategies” method of enhancing self-esteem
Seeking excuses for possible future failures when afraid of failing an important task. (purposefully delaying starting revising, sandbagging, play down ability, lower expectations, publicly predict failure)
Explain the “basking in reflected glory” method of enhancing self-esteem
as the name, still basking in glory from the past, glory which today may not be available.
explain the “downward comparisons” method of enhancing self-esteem
The idea of thinking it could always be worse as there are other experiencing it worse than oneself.
