The Self - Test #2

Question 1

Self as Object - “Me”

Answer 1

consists of:

• self-concept
• self-esteem
• autobiographical memory
• prospection

Question 2

Self-concept

Answer 2

cognitive evaluation of one’s identity.

Question 3

Self-esteem

Answer 3

affective evaluation of one’s self-worth.

Question 4

Autobiographical memory

Answer 4

personal life narrative that people construct based on their memories of the past.

Question 5

Prospection

Answer 5

expectations one has for their future.

Question 6

Self as the Subject - “I”

Answer 6

the subjective center of experience that we each hold and the powerful feeling of being an agent in the world.

Question 7

Subject of experience

Answer 7

we feel as though the various experiences that unfold at any given moment refer back to a single entity located somewhere in the body.

Question 8

Agent/actor

Answer 8

we feel as if we are the creator of different thoughts/actions.

• (is psychologically constructed).

Question 9

How do we come to know the self?

Answer 9

1) introspection

2) self-perception theory

Question 10

Introspection

Answer 10

process of turning attention “inward” in an attempt to identify one’s feelings, thoughts, and motives.

Question 11

Limitations of Introspection

Answer 11

• people overestimate how much they really know about themselves.
• emotional cues presented subliminally can alter people’s preferences for ambiguous items shown shortly after.

Question 12

Introspection experiment

Answer 12

shows that people are trying to look inward and identify their motives, but they don’t know the true motives of their actions.

• have people come into a mall, near the entrance there are 4 identical items positioned from left to right.
• people tend to pick right most items. If you ask them why, they give you “made up” answers, i.e “it had the best texture”.

Question 13

Self-perception theory

Answer 13

we figure out internal motives by looking at outward behaviour.

Question 14

Over-justification effect

Answer 14

intrinsic motivation is undermined because one’s behaviour is attributed to extrinsic motivation.

Question 15

How is the self-concept stored in the brain?

Answer 15

• medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) becomes active when people make judgments about themselves.

Question 16

Individualistic cultures

Answer 16

mPFC is uniquely actively by self-judgments.

Question 17

Collectivist cultures

Answer 17

mPFC is active for both self-judgments and close-other judgments (i.e mother).

Question 18

Rubber-Hand Illusion

Answer 18

• shows constructed nature of self as subject.
• participants come to subjectively and involuntarily feel that an external rubber hand belongs to their own body.
• can predict how likely/intensely someone will feel rubber hand illusion by how much premotor cortex is activated.

Question 19

Benjamin Libet

Answer 19

research shows that individuals subjective feeling of consciously willing an action emerges after (not before) the rising of neural signals that reliably predict that action well ahead of time.

Question 20

Galvanic skin response (GSR)

Answer 20

a physiological response that indicates the change in the skin’s resistance to an electrical current.

Question 21

Research on self esteem

Answer 21

• people would value a self-esteem boost more than eating their favourite food and engaging in their favourite sexual activity.

Question 22

Defensive Self-esteem

Answer 22

highly dependent on external events.

• consists of high explicit, low implicit self-esteem.

Question 23

Secure Self-esteem

Answer 23

does not fluctuate easily according to external events.

• consists of high explicit & implicit self-esteem.

Question 24

Self-disclosure

Answer 24

speaking about oneself to another person is pleasurable.

• activates nucleus accumbens.

Question 25

How to measure implicit self-esteem

Answer 25

• get people to categorize self-words into positive or negative categories.
• faster they put words in positive bin = positive implicit self-esteem.

Question 26

Explicit self-esteem

Answer 26

entails more conscious and reflective self-evaluation.

Question 27

Implicit self-esteem

Answer 27

refers to a person’s disposition to evaluate themselves in an automatic/unconscious manner.

Question 28

Better-than-average-effect

Answer 28

people generally believe that they are above the median on various positive abilities.

-ex: students writing SATS, professors and teaching ability, drivers, etc.

Question 29

Optimism bias

Answer 29

people believe that they are more likely to experience positive events and less likely to experience negative events.

Question 30

Moderating Factors - B-T-A effect

Answer 30

1. ) Type of measurement.
2. ) Nature of judgment.
3. ) Nature of comparison target.
4. ) Characteristic of judgment.

Question 31

Type of Measurement

Answer 31

direct vs. indirect

• direct (compared to average student at Ryerson).
• indirect (place self on one scale, and on another scale place average Ryerson student).
• direct comparison leads to stronger BTA effect.

Question 32

Nature of Judgment

Answer 32

deals with ambiguity & controllability.

Question 33

Nature of Comparison Target

Answer 33

individuated vs statistics.

• ex: compare yourself to the person next to you, or random Ryerson student.
• weaker BTA effect when we compare ourselves to individual person.

Question 34

Characteristic of Judgment

Answer 34

self-esteem vs depression

• depressed people have more accurate self-measurement.

Question 35

Does the self exist?

Answer 35

• it is not clear.

- people lose their self consciousness when engaging in behaviours that create flow.

Question 36

Psychedelics

Answer 36

Psilocybin (magic mushrooms) & other psychedelics can cause a loss of self, ego loss & feelings of bliss.

Question 37

Default Mode Network (DMN)

Answer 37

brain area that is active when no tasks are being done.

Question 38

Three Areas of DMN

Answer 38

1. ) Medial Prefrontal Cortex (mPFC).
2. ) Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC).
3. ) Posterior Cingulate Cortex (PCC).

Question 39

DMN & Psychedelics

Answer 39

• ingesting psychedelics decouples activity between the mPFC and PCC, so that they act independently in contrast to working together.
• can predict how strong a person’s trip which will be based on how much deactivation in DMN areas.

Question 40

End-of-history illusion experiment

Answer 40

people believe that traits such as value, personality, and preferences are stable and will change less than they actually do at every stage of life.

• (this is wrong).