Social psychology Flashcards
Aspects of self-identity
Personal identity-Who we are as individuals
Social identity-Who we are based on our groups
Cultural identity-Who we are based on our upbringing
The Social Self
The self is a unitary and continuous awareness of who one is (Morf & Koole,
2012)
• The same person who fell asleep last night and woke up this morning
• This is not to say the self never changes! Our sense of self can change due to external
factors (new job, moving country) or our own efforts (therapy, personality change) over time
Many aspects of the self are influenced by social experiences
• How we think of ourselves (what are you ‘like’?)
• What (and who) we like and dislike
• Habits we form
• Values we adhere to
• How we (learn to) behave
Even personality is
affected by social context
In a study:
• Elaborate cover story - the bread and butter of social psychology studies
• Present yourself as an extraverted or introverted person
• Extraverted: “outgoing, socially skilled, a people person, eager to meet new people”
• Introverted: “shy, thoughtful, sensitive, and quiet, not pushy or bossy”
• In public or in private
• Then participants rated their “true selves”
-high extrovert rate in the public
Social Identity
We often think about identity as something unique to us, that distinguishes us from other people
But a big part of who we are comes from the groups we belong to (Tajfel, 1979)
Identity is something that binds us with others, not separates us from others
Early conceptions of social selves
The Social Me (William James, 1890)
• What we know about ourselves from social relationships
• Who a person is in one context (e.g., at work) isn’t necessarily the same person they are in another context (e.g., at home)
Working self-concept (Markus & Wurf, 1987)
• A subset of our self-knowledge is brought to mind in a given context
• The self relevant to relationships may be the mind’s prime focus in romantic contexts; the self related to competition in sports contexts
Self-categorisation theory
- We group things together to help us understand the world
- Categorisation as a process emphasises the differences between groups and the similarities within groups
- At the group level, we categorise people into ‘ingroups’ (groups to which we belong) and ‘outgroups’ (groups to which we don’t belong)
- The self can be construed at various levels of identity abstraction
- Different identities become salient in different contexts (a psychology student in this lecture; a mother when homeschooling)
- Shifting the salience of different identities can make previous outgroup members (e.g., engineering students) become ingroup members (e.g., fellow University of Melbourne students)
- ‘Who we are’ depends on the context in which we find ourselves
Cultural Identity
Our sense of self derived from groups we belong to that have a distinct culture (nationality, ethnicity, social class, etc)
A form of social identity, but one that is often with us from the day we are born and encompasses a total way of life and the way we view the world
Can be fostered directly (through socialisation efforts) or indirectly (through background exposure to ways of life, predispositions toward seeing the world in a particular way)
Culture and the Social Self
Cultural self-construal (Markus & Kitayama,
1991)
• Individualist (or independent): the self is an autonomous entity separate from others; people should assert their independence and celebrate their uniqueness
• My environment should change to fit me
• Many Western countries: USA, Australia, UK
• Collectivist (or interdependent): the self is fundamentally connected to other people; people should seek to fit in a community and fulfil appropriate roles
• I should change to fit my environment
• Many East Asian, South Asian, African and Latin American countries
Individualist / Independent self-construal vs Collectivist / Interdependent self-construal
Individualist / Independent self-construal • Separate from social context • Be unique, express yourself • Promote your own goals • Say “what’s on your mind” Collectivist / Interdependent self-construal • Connected with social context • Fit in, occupy your proper place • Promote others’ goals • “Read others’ minds”
‘Who am I’ exercise (Kuhn & McPartland,
1954)
• List 20 statements that describe who you are
• Americans’ self-descriptions tend to be context-free responses about traits and preferences (“I like camping”; “Hard working”)
• Responses by people from interdependent cultures tend to be context dependent and refer to relationships (“I’m serious at work”; “I’m Jan’s friend”)
Even within cultures there are differences in self-construal (Ma & Schoeneman, 1997)
• ‘Who am I’ exercise among different groups living in Kenya
• Undergraduate students living in Nairobi with greater exposure to Western culture and being educated in Western tradition
• Traditional Maasai herding peoples who had very little contact with Western principles
Humans have basic psychological needs
• Belonging: to be accepted by others
• Self-esteem: to be liked by others
• Control: to be capable of achieving goals
• Meaning: to have relevance in the world
Connection with others fosters these needs (Greenaway et al., 2016)
• People were asked to remember they gained or lost an important identity or group membership
• Then reflected on how this event affected basic needs
-those that lost a group score lower in all aspect of need satisfaction
Social belonging, self esteem?
The Sociometer Hypothesis (Leary et al.,
1995)
- Things that make us feel good about ourselves (self-esteem) are also the things that make others accept and like us (belonging)
- Like a fuel gauge, self-esteem is a readout of our likely standing with others
- High self-esteem signals social inclusion
- Low self-esteem signals social exclusion
- Self-esteem cues us when we need to attend to and shore up our social bonds
- Leary and colleagues argue we don’t need self-esteem for personal reasons, just social reasons
Social Comparison Theory (Festinger, 1954)
• Two assumptions of this theory
1. We seek to gain accurate self-evaluations
2. Comparisons with other people help us reality-check our own self-evaluations
• We make two types of comparisons (Wills, 1981):
1. Downward comparisons: when we compare ourselves to others we think are worse than us on a particular dimension (can improve our self-evaluation)
2. Upward comparisons: when we compare ourselves to others we think are better than us on a particular dimension (can worsen our self-evaluation)
Self-Evaluation Maintenance Model
(Tesser, 1988
• Two assumptions of this theory
1. We seek to maintain or improve our self-evaluation
2. Comparisons with others influence our self-evaluation
• Two processes in this theory
1. Reflection: Other people improve our self-evaluation
2. Comparison: Other people worsen our self-evaluation
Reflection and Comparison
Reflection
• Usually happens when evaluation happens in a domain that is not relevant to the self
• My sister won her rowing race at 6am in the freezing Melbourne winter - I feel so good!
• Self-evaluation goes up because the self shares in the success
Comparison
• Usually happens when evaluation happens in a domain that is relevant to the self
• My friend got the highest score on the MBB2 assignment - I need to eat my feelings
• Self-evaluation goes down because it invites unfavourable comparison with our own abilities
Both processes are exacerbated with a close other
BIRG-ing
Basking in Reflected Glory
Others’ success becomes our success
Align ourselves publicly with successful others
Wearing team clothing, saying “we” (Cialdini et al., 1976)
Motive for enhancement: we want to feel good
CORF-ing
Others’ failure becomes our failure, unless…
We distance ourselves publicly from those others
Taking down signs of support (Boen et al., 2002)
Motive for protection: we want to avoid feeling bad
The Better-Than-Average Effect (Alicke &
Govorun, 2005; Taylor & Brown, 1988)
• Most of us tend to view ourselves positively
• So much so that people think they are above average on a wide range of positive dimensions
• Most drivers said their driving skill was closer to “expert” than “poor”…while hospitalised for being in a car accident (Preston & Harris, 1965)
• Does not differ when comparing a general or
similar other
Different form of loneliness
- Psychological distance: Loneliness
- Social distance: Social network centrality
- Induced distance: Rejection and discrimination
Loneliness
Subjective feeling of distress when social relations are not going how we would like
• Discrepancy between the level of connectedness we want to have and what we currently have
• We can be surrounded by others and still be lonely or can be alone but not feel lonely
• Loneliness is affected by lack of relationship quantity (e.g., number of friends)
• But is more affected by lack of relationship quality - feeling misunderstood or that relationships are not meaningful
Different from social isolation, which is a state of having minimal contact with others
Effect of loneliness
Worse physical health Greater social anxiety Fewer social interactions Greater depression Worse life satisfaction More negative emotions
Social Distance in Social Networks
A way of quantifying social structures
• Characterises networked structures in terms of nodes (individuals within the network) and the ties that link them
• Yields several measures - who knows whom in a network, popularity within a network, closeness between people in a network etc
Given the importance of connectedness with others, lack of inclusion in a social network is detrimental for health
Social Networks and Physical
Health
Greater social integration is associated with lower mortality
• The fewer social ties people had, the more likely they were to die over the next 9 years
• Same pattern for men and women and across age groups
Loneliness is catching
• Cacioppo and colleagues (2009) found people directly connected to a lonely person in a social network were 52% more likely to be lonely
• Loneliness grows in networks over time - extends up to a friend of a friend of a friend
• Growth is particularly strong when the lonely tie is close - a friend or family member
• Three explanations for this:
• Induction: Emotion contagion within a network
• Homophily: Similar people are connected (like with like)
• Shared environment: Exposure to the same social
challenges and upheavals
Ostracism
- In modern terms, refers to social shunning
* “Any act of ignoring and excluding of an individual or group by an individual or a group”
Why do we ostracise?
- Group reasons
- Strengthen the group: make the group cohesive
- Protect the group: correct unacceptable behaviour
- Individual reasons
- Individuals who ostracise feel more powerful and in control
Cyberball
Online version of a ball-tossing game
Participants are instructed to throw a ball with other players - when
included, participants receive the ball 1/3rd of the time; when excluded
they receive the ball once or twice and then never receive it again
Still used regularly in studies today, despite the laughably simple rendering
Effects of being excluded in cyberball are similar to “in person” ostracism
- it’s a very effective method of inducing ostracism
That said, some modern paradigms seek to incorporate more ecological
validity in the exclusion process
Ostracism Hurts
From an evolutionary perspective, ostracism
signals danger (no access to social resources)
As a result, being excluded or ostracised
harms basic psychological needs and makes
us feel bad
In fact, we’re so sensitive to social feedback
that ostracism hurts no matter who does it!
Discrimination
How others treat us on the basis of our group membership impacts on our mental and physical health
Discrimination can lead to ill-health
Discrimination
How others treat us on the basis of our
group membership impacts on our health
Discrimination can lead to ill-health through:
• Stress and emotional reactions with detrimental
impacts on mental health
• Negative coping responses (e.g., smoking, drug
use)
• Reduced access to resources (e.g., education,
employment, housing, medical care)
• Physical injury via racially-motivated assault
Is Social Media Good or Bad for Us?
Stimulation hypothesis: Online interactions strengthen
existing relationships and thus have a social benefit
Displacement hypothesis: Social media replaces offline,
face-to-face interactions, thus incurring social costs
Stimulation Hypothesis
Social media can strengthen social ties
• Active use to connect with others (e.g., private exchanges with others, public posts with the intent to broadcast to others) is associated with greater perceived social support and better wellbeing (Frison & Eggermont, 2015, Burke, 2011)
• Online communication can stimulate selfdisclosure, which improves relationships and well-being (Valkenberg & Peter, 2009)
• Computer-mediated-communication reduces social contextual cues
• People become less concerned with how others view them
• Feel fewer inhibitions about disclosing information
Displacement Hypothesis
Social media can weaken social ties
• Passive use (e.g., monitoring others’ lives without direct exchanges) is associated with less perceived social support and worse well-being (Frison & Eggermont, 2015)
• Accessing social media because it seems easier than communicating face-to-face increases loneliness (Teppers et al., 2014) Social comparison is problematic
• People who are on Facebook longer and more frequently tend to think others are happier and have better lives than them (Chou et al., 2012)
• Social comparison anxiety on Instagram predicts greater depression (Mackson et al., 2019)
The Impact of Social Media Depends on Us
How we use social media matters
• Active vs. passive: engaging socially vs. lurking
• Motives for use: connect with others vs. avoid social anxiety
When actively used to enhance existing relationships and forge new social connections, social media can be a force for good When passively used to escape the social world or compare ourselves with others, social media can be harmful
Dale Carnegie’s Golden Rules for Becoming Friendlier
- Don’t criticise, condemn, or complain
- Give honest, sincere appreciation
- Arouse in the other person an eager want
- Become genuinely interested in other people
- Smile
- Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound
- Be a good listener; encourage others to talk about themselves
- Talk in terms of the other person’s interests
- Make the other person feel important - do it sincerely
Snap Judgements
Lack of sufficient information rarely stops us from making judgements about others
• We often make snap judgements about people - quick impressions based on the most brief of glances
• Willis & Todorov (2006) showed people faces and had them rate those faces on a range of traits (likeable, competent, honest, aggressive, extraverted etc)
• Some participants rated at their own pace (“gold standard” comparison)
• Others rated after seeing the faces for 1 second, half a second, or 100 milliseconds
-high correlation of honest
Impressions that make a difference
Our judgements of others predict consequential decisions, not least in the
form of voting behaviour
• Politicians with faces judged to be more competent after 1 second exposure were 69%
more likely to win their election (Todorov, Mandisodza, Goren, & Hall, 2005)
• Replicates when the faces are shown for 1 tenth of a second (Ballew & Todorov, 2007)
• Snap competence judgements made before an election accurately predict who will win that
election in 70% of cases (Ballew & Todorov, 2007)
Of course, snap judgements of competence aren’t necessarily based in reality
but they can affect perceivers’ thoughts and behaviour
Thin Slicing
The ability to find patterns in events based on “thin slices”, or narrow windows, of experience
• Our ability to draw relatively accurate conclusions about the emotions and attitudes of people in short interactions
• Ambady and Rosenthal (1993) had participants form judgements of university lecturers and high school teachers
• The catch: judgements were based on 10 second videos of the person teaching
• Participant judgements were compared against student evaluations (lecturer) and principal ratings (high school teacher)
Person Perception
- How we perceive others is a complex process influenced by a number of factors
- But judgements do appear to be based on two primary dimensions: warmth and competence
- Warmth-Traits that help us assess others’ intent in a social context
- Competant-Traits that help us assess others’ ability to act on their intent
Fundamental Dimensions
Abele & Wojciszke (2007) had participants rate 300 traits drawn from existing psychological scales
• Agency/Communion
• Individualism/Collectivism
• Morality/Competence
• Big 5 personality dimensions
Two dimensions emerged that explained 90% of variance in the traits
Warmth- desire from other
Competant- desire from self
-Warmth and competence are independent but important dimensions on which we judge people
-Warmth judgements appear to be primary, and are made more quickly than competence judgements
Impression by Innuendo
We like to form well-rounded impressions of people, meaning we may infer qualities about people if we don’t have concrete evidence about those qualities
Kervyn et al. (2012) devised a study to test the “innuendo effect”
Updating a First Impression
Impression formation: the process by which people combine information about others to make overall judgements
Two ways in which impressions are updated:
• Algebraically
• Configurationally
Algebraic Models
Impressions formed on the basis of a mechanical combination of information about a person
Three ways of combining information to form overall impressions
• Summative
• Averaging
• Weighted averaging
Configurational Model
Based on Gestalt principles: the whole is greater than the sum of its parts
People combine information they receive about someone into an overall impression that can be different from the simple sum of items of information about that person
• Central traits: influential in impression formation
• Peripheral traits: less influential in impression formation
Getting to Know Someone
Initial liking: factors that make us like others
Getting closer: sharing and secrecy
