The self I: Making life easier, better and more positive

Question 1

the desire to see the self in positive terms

Answer 1

A bias like any other?

Probably a bit more to it…not just about limits to processing system compromising accuracy but also…

Subjective biases arising from our own desires and needs - high self-esteem, control and affiliation

Question 2

terms used

Answer 2

Positivity bias

Ego-protection

Self-esteem enhancement

Positive illusions – often talk about the future

“we are motivated to enhance the positivity of our self-conceptions and to protect the self from negative information.” (Moskowitz, 2005)

Question 3

positive illusions

Answer 3

It’s healthy to see the self in positive terms (until it becomes delusional!)

Question 4

3 categories of positive illusions

Answer 4

Unrealistically positive views of self

Unrealistic optimism

Exaggerated perceptions of personal control

Question 5

unrealistic positive views of self

Answer 5

Self-serving bias – attribution bias

Provide dispositional, personal based explanations when we do well and situational reasons when we fail

A robust, cross cultural finding

Increases over time

Take credit for success – self-enhancing bias rather than self-protecting bias – deny responsibility for what went wrong

Question 6

relating unrealistic views of self to attribution - pos illusions happen because

Answer 6

We attribute our own negative outcomes to the situation but…

Positive outcomes are viewed as arising from dispositional and stable causes

Enduring across contexts – internal, stable factors

Need to protect ourself – motivational explanation

How we process info about ourself – cognitive explanation

Expect to succeed – when succeed opinions and real life coincide – weighted strongly in memory – leads to a bias – adaptive bias – more positive self-concept – more inclined to stick at tasks as expecting to do well – more likely to get back to work after redundancy, more popular

Question 7

empirical evidence - Stevens and Jones (1976)

Answer 7

False feedback on how they had done – IV – was consensus high or low? – self-esteem threatened

How attribution was measured - 100 points shared between ability, effort, task difficulty and luck; scales rating each of these factors – explain behaviour

Results - Success = personal ability; failure = bad luck; most extreme when blow to self-esteem and consensus was to do well (18% personal ability, 40% luck)

Defensive attribution pattern - why?

Question 8

motivated scepticism

Answer 8

Tendency to be sceptical – more critically hostile towards info that we don’t want to believe about ourselves.

Don’t process info too deeply that we already know

Question 9

how are we sheltered from self-esteem damaging feedback?

Answer 9

Feedback is typically positive, or if negative, sugar coated

We choose friends with similar views

We tend to see ambiguous feedback in most positive light for us (ignore it if unambiguous and negative)

We opt to denigrate (discredit) source of negative feedback

Question 10

cognitive dissonance reduction

Answer 10

Very applicable to dealing with bad things about the self!

Illustration - smoke, but know it’s not a wise thing to do - how to reconcile this?

How important are dissonant elements to self-concept?

Would you predict more dissonance in people who are high or low in self-esteem? Why? – hard to reconcile due to big divide to cross

Question 11

ways of reducing dissonance that involve the self

Answer 11

Eliminate negative behaviour that is source of discrepant cognitions - not always easy (give up smoking)

Justify/rationalise discrepant act to accommodate undesirable behaviour

How do we do this?

Question 12

the Bluffer’s guide to rationalisation

Answer 12

Seek cognitions consistent with discrepancy – find beliefs that what we’re doing isn’t that bad

Change your attitude so cognition and behaviour not discrepant

Affirm sense of self as positive in other related domains - e.g. good person in other ways

Trivialization – ‘life is too short’

Question 13

defensive pessimism and self-handicapping

Answer 13

“I am doomed to fail”

Often not the case, so why say this? – ward off possibility of failure – sets them up to over prepare

Can such fears work to protect self-esteem?

Self-handicapping - may do something to increase chance of failure just to have a good excuse for failure when it happens (get drunk night before an exam) – preserves self in tact

Question 14

defensive pessimism

Answer 14

a chronic tendency to prepare for/expect the worst

Question 15

unrealistic optimism

Answer 15

We don’t like to think negative events will happen to us

Seems like a good self-preservation plan!

Difference between being optimistic and being unrealistically optimistic in predicting the future

Some examples…motivated inference

Question 16

motivated inference (Kunda, 1987)

Answer 16

Biased theory generation

Warding off links between negative outcomes and attributes

Prediction of a bright future/affective forecasting

Question 17

biased theory generation - Kunda (1987, 1)

Answer 17

Pps read about divorced or happily married person (either introvert or extrovert, plus other info).

Pps asked to what extent they thought attributes contributed to marriage outcome

Pps assessed own attributes (including those describing target person), how these relate to future event (marriage) and their success at marriage

Shared attributes seen as the thing that promoted good marriage; outcome info affected ratings – bias in way framed possession certain attributes and in actual context

Question 18

warding off links - Kunda (1987, 3)

Answer 18

more critical about info that has negative implications for you, more accepting of info that favours you

caffeine consumption and links to a fictitious disease linked to breast cancer

Evaluations affected by whether article was personally threatening

Men lacked motivation to be biased

High user women saw article as threatening and found evidence to be unconvincing

Caveat: Positive illusions can help preserve mental health, but might increase chances of poor physical health

Question 19

predictions of a bright future

Answer 19

People seem inaccurate at predicting impact of positive and negative events

Example - tend to think positive events will bring far greater and long lasting joy than they do (failure to accurately gauge impact, duration and power)

Why? Gilbert et al. (1998)

Question 20

implicit self-esteem

Answer 20

Positive regard for the self can extend to things only loosely relevant to self (sharing same birthday as someone)

Self-esteem can have implicit component (no awareness it has effect)

Name letter effect; number in birthday preference; sharing initials with someone = more likely to marry