Social Psych Intro (social self) Flashcards
Social Psychology
scientific study of how people influence each others thoughts, feelings and behaviors
Kurt Lewin
social psych pioneer
behavior = f(person x situation)
[f=function]
3 aspects of social psychology
- social thinking (cognition)-reasoning
- social influence-how we influence others
- social behavior
Self Awareness
understanding that we are a separate entity from others/objects; state of being conscious of our own existence
imitation
copying behavior of caregivers–early infancy
Mirror Self-Recognition Test
A scientific paradigm where a mark is placed on an animals forehead and is placed in front of a mirror. The animal is assumed to have self-recognition if it touches the mark on its forehead
Self Concept
personal summary of who we are
Self Schema
way to think about how the self-concept is formed –> memory structures that summarize and organize our beliefs about self-relevant information create a cognitive framework within which individuals interpret events of their lives
-mental structures that direct selves attention
Social Comparison Theory
proposes that our sense of self is influenced by different types of social comparisons, including upward and downward comparison
upward social comparison
comparing to someone who’s better than us
downward self comparison
comparing to someone who is worse
WIDE factors
Who: evaluate abilities automatically by comparing ourselves to similar others (the more similar, the greater the impact)
Interpretation: how we interpret social comparisons influences our self-concept (optimistic or pessimistic)
Direction: the direction of our social comparison influences our self-concept; downward tend to enhance self-concept
Esteem: protecting our self-esteem influences our self-concept
Social Identity Theory
psychological theory that proposes that our self-concept is composed of two parts: a personal identity that is baed on personal characteristics and a social identity that is based on social role
we organize beliefs about ourselves into mental structures in memory
regional affiliations
influence how others perceive us and how we perceive ourselves
cultural self
mostly unaware of it until we happen to bump into another culture
-view of the world based on this self
Independent and Interdependent Self-Construals (culture)
Western (individualistic) vs Eastern (collectivistic)
ideal self in one culture is very different from the ideal self in another culture
Independent self-construal
when an individual’s ideal self is largely based on internal, personal qualities
Interdependent self-construal
when an individual’s ideal self is largely based on social qualities, especially relationship with others
Self Perception Theory
individuals form their self-concept by observing their own behaviors and trying to infer their own motivations, attitudes, values and core traits
-observing in relation to others in the social world
Vazire and Mehl study (2008)
found that we don’t have perfect access to our behaviors and we may be a bit bias towards our behaviors
Self Discrepancy Theory
suggests that instead of a single self, we have three selves; the actual self, the ideal self, and the ought self
Actual Self
who we think we are right now
Ideal Self
who we’d like to become (dreams and goals)
Ought Self
what we think others expect of us (obligations)
