The Self

Question 1

what is self-concept?

Answer 1

a persons knowledge about themslef, including their traits, social identities, and experiences

Question 2

what is the social identity theory?

Answer 2

people define and value themselves largely in terms of the social groups with which they identify

Question 3

what is interdependent?

Answer 3

highlights the individuals role within family and social relationships and emphasizes responsibilities that accompany these roles, rather than the individuals self-centered pursuit of happiness

Question 4

what is frame-switching?

Answer 4

the ability to change the culturally grounded framework through which they interpret any given event

Question 5

how are women and men similar to each other more than different?

Answer 5

• differences are exaggerated and imagined
• differences are assumed to be biological but are culturally based
• gendered behaviour is learned by being told what is appropriate

Question 6

what is the social role theory

Answer 6

The theory that gender differences in behaviour, personality, and self-definition arise because of a long history of role distribution between the sexes and error-prone assumptions that those roles are essential to the nature of men and women.

Question 7

what is a self-schema?

Answer 7

an integrated set of memories, beliefs, and generalizations about an attribute that is part of one’s self concept

Question 8

what is stable in reference to self-concept?

Answer 8

central aspects of self-concept

Question 9

what is malleable in reference to self-concept?

Answer 9

aspects made accessible in specific social situations, motives, and cues

Question 10

what is working on self-concept?

Answer 10

the portion of one’s self-schema that is currently activated and strongly influences thoughts, feelings, and actions

Question 11

what is solo status?

Answer 11

a sense that one is unique in some specific manner in relation to other people in the current environment

Question 12

how do we come to know the self?

Answer 12

• appraisals they get from others
• social comparisons
• self-perceptions

Question 13

what is symbolic interactionism?

Answer 13

people use thier understanding of how significant people in their lives view them as the primary basis for knowing and evaluating themsleves

Question 14

what is the looking glass self?

Answer 14

significant people in our lives reflect back to us who we are by how they behave toward us

Question 15

what is appraisals?

Answer 15

what other people think about us

Question 16

what is reflected appraisals?

Answer 16

what we think of other people think of us; as compared with actual appraisals

Question 17

what is the social comparison theory?

Answer 17

people come to know themselves partly by comparing themselves with similar others
- downward comparison
- upward comparison

Question 18

what is a downward comparison?

Answer 18

comparing oneself with those who are worse off

Question 19

what is an upward comparison?

Answer 19

comparing oneself with those who are better off

Question 20

what are the errors in social comparison?

Answer 20

• over or underestimating your own attributes
• over or underestimating the attributes of those to who you compare yourself

Question 21

what is the better than average effect?

Answer 21

on many abilities and traits most people think they are better than average… a statistical impossibility

Question 22

what is the self-perception theory

Answer 22

people form impressions of themselves by observing their own behaviour and the situation in which it occurs

Question 23

what is the facial feedback hypothesis?

Answer 23

the idea that changes in facial expression elicit emotions associated with those expressions

Question 24

what is the two factor theory of emotion?

Answer 24

peoples emotions are the product of both their arousal level and how they interpret that arousal based on contextual clues
Emotion = Arousal x cognitive level

Question 25

what is the misattribution of arousal?

Answer 25

inadvertent ascription of arousal resulting from one source to a different source

Question 26

what is self-regulation?

Answer 26

• a set of processes for guiding one’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviours to reach desired goals
• the ability to self regulate is based on three key capacities of the human mind

Question 27

what are the three steps of self-regulation

Answer 27

1. self-awareness
2. goal setting
3. mental time travel

Question 28

what is the self-awareness theory

Answer 28

the theory that aspects of the self- one’s attitudes values and goals, will most likely to influence behaviour when attention is focused on the self

Question 29

how does self-awareness promotes behaving in line with internal standards

Answer 29

internalized attitudes, values, and goals guide behaviour only to the extent that people are self aware

Question 30

what is the self-discrepancy theory?

Answer 30

people feel anxiety when they fall short of how they ought to be but feel sad when they fall short of how they ideally want to be

Question 31

what is the best way for achieving our goals?

Answer 31

people are more likely to persevere and succeed when they frame their goals in terms of living up to their ideal self

Question 32

what is the auto-motie theory?

Answer 32

even subtle exposure to goal-related stimuli can automatically activate the goal and guide behaviour

Question 33

how can goals be activated?

Answer 33

goals can be activated either by consciously bringing them to mind or by being unconsciously cued by the environment
- they can also be influenced by other

Question 34

what is a concrete conception?

Answer 34

specifies how the action is accomplished

Question 35

what is abstract conception?

Answer 35

specifies why the action was performed

Question 36

what is the action identification theory?

Answer 36

explains how people conceive of action… their own or others… in ways that range from very concrete to very abstract

Question 37

what is the construal level theory?

Answer 37

people focus more on concrete details when thinking about the near future and focus more on abstract meaning when thinking about the near future

Question 38

what is affective forecasting?

Answer 38

predicting ones emotional reactions to potential future events

Question 39

how is affective forecasting ineffective?

Answer 39

• predictions are often inaccurate
• predictions often overestimate the impact of a salient factor
• affective forecasting affects our behaviours

Question 40

what is one of the keys to effective self-regulation

Answer 40

willpower (impulse control)

Question 41

what is hot processes?

Answer 41

driven by strong emotions

Question 42

what is cold processes?

Answer 42

rely on level-headed reasoning

Question 43

what is delay of gratification?

Answer 43

performance on a delay of gratification task at age four predicts a variety of indicators of self-regulatory success up to 30 years later

Question 44

what are three cool strategies?

Answer 44

-designing environment to avoid temptations
- practicing mindful attention
-tricking ourselves into thinking temptation is not valued

Question 45

what is cognitive reapprasial?

Answer 45

reframed a situation to minimize one’s emotional reaction to it

Question 46

what is self-regulatory perseveration theory of depression?

Answer 46

The theory that one way in which people can fall into depression is through persistent self-focus on an unattainable goal