The Self in a Social World Flashcards
Why is our self-concept inherently social?
The way that others behave towards us influences our beliefs and feelings towards ourselves AND our beliefs and feelings about ourselves influence the way we perceive, judge, and behave towards others.
Self-schemas
Beliefs about the self that organize and guide the processing of self-relevant information.
Ex; if being an athlete is one of your self-schemas, you will tend to notice others’ bodies and skills, quickly recall sport-related experiences, and welcome information consistent with this self-schema
Possible selves (Markus and Nurius)
Images of what we dream of or dread of becoming in the future. Motivate us.
Self-discrepancy theory (Higgins)
Actual self, ideal self, and ought self.
We are sensitive to contradictions among these different representations of self. We feel discomfort when they contradict.
The looking-glass self (Cooley)
How we think others perceive us as a mirror for perceiving ourselves
Independent (individualistic) cultures
Value individuality, autonomy, and self-reliance
Interdependent (collectivist) cultures
Value fitting in, cooperation, and social harmony
In regard to cognition, individuals from independent cultures tend to focus on the ________
foreground
In regard to cognition, individuals from interdependent cultures tend to focus on the ______
context
In regard to self-esteem, individuals from independent cultures make __________ comparisons to boost self-esteem
downward
In regard to self-esteem, individuals from interdependent cultures make _______ comparisons to facilitate self-improvement
upward
Mark Leary believed that our self-esteem feelings are like a fuel gauge. Why?
Self-esteem gauge alerts us to threatened social rejection that motivates us to survive and thrive by holding onto relationships, act accordingly to others’ expectations, and find approval.
High self-esteem can cross over into ______
narcissism
Christian Jordon found that people who have conscious views of themselves that are positive but have low implicit self-esteem are likely to have _______
fragile self-views
People with fragile self-esteem are…
more defensive and rationalize their decisions more
Perceived self-control
After an initial act of self-control, people feel justified in slacking off.
Ex; people who controlled their emotions during an upsetting film, later became more aggressive with their partners
Uncontrollable bad events lead to…
perceived lack of control which in turn leads to learned helplessness
Berry Schwartz says that individualistic cultures have an excess of freedom. Why is this bad?
Decrease in life satisfaction, increased rates of clinical depression, and making choices becomes tiring
4 ways in which we maintain our self-esteem
- Self-serving biases
- Self-handicapping
- Self-affirmation
- BIRGing & CORFing
Self-serving biases
Tendency to perceive yourself favourably
Self-serving attributions
Form of self-serving bias; tendency to attribute positive outcomes to yourself and negative outcomes to other factors
Illusory optimism
Form of self-serving bias; believe ourselves to be immune to misfortune
False consensus
Form of self-serving bias; tendency to overestimate the commonality of one’s negative behaviours.
“I lie, but doesn’t everyone?”
False uniqueness
Form of self-serving bias; tendency to underestimate the commonality of one’s positive behaviours.
“My ability to play sports is unique”
Self-handicapping
Protecting one’s self-image with behaviours that create a handy excuse for later failure
Self-affirmation
Thinking about success or competence in another domain
BIRGing
AKA “basking in reflected glory”
Individuals associate themselves with successful others, such that another’s success becomes their own
CORFing
AKA “cutting off reflected failure”
Individuals disassociate themselves from the failures of others
Temporal comparison
Comparing past and present selves. “From chump to champ”
Temporal comparison (Wilson and Ross) - Distance can be subjective experiment
Participants were told to think of the beginning of the term. The question was framed differently for both half of the participants.
Participants then rated their standing on a number of traits.
Finding: participants who perceived the start of the semester as more distant in time rated their past and present self attributes more differently.
Temporal comparison (Conway and Ross) - Past selves can be subjective
People generate support for their perceptions that they are improving by misremembering the past
Planning fallacy
Tendency to underestimate how long it will take to complete a task
Affective forecasting
Tendency to incorrectly predict the intensity and duration of future emotions
Spotlight phenomenon
Tendency to overestimate how much you are being noticed by others
