Week 2

Question 1

Describe characteristics of the social self (4)

Answer 1

• not indépendant of environnement
• is constructed, maintained and negotiated in the social environment.
• it is malleable
• dynamic not static

Question 2

What are the 3 primary components of the self?

Answer 2

• Invidiual: beliefs about our own unique personal traits, abilities, talents etc.
• collective: beliefs about identities as members of social groups
• relational: beliefs about identities in specific relationships.

Question 3

Define a Schema

Answer 3

• a knowledge structure consisting of any organized body of stored knowledge
• generalized knowledge about the world and how to behave in a particular situation with different kinds of people.

Question 4

Define a self schema

Answer 4

• a cognitive structure derived from past experience that represents a persons’ beliefs and feelings about or self in general, and in specific situations.

Question 5

How does a self schema form?

Answer 5

• experiences: stored in memory as part of consceintiousness

Question 6

Describe what is meant by self reference effect

Answer 6

• better memory for info related to ourselves

Question 7

Describe what is meant by the looking glass self

Answer 7

• our beliefs about what others think of our social selves
• internalizing how we think others think of us, not nessasarily how others actually see us.

Question 8

Define situationism

Answer 8

• there is a core, relatively stable pool of self knowledge, which then shifts with a given situation.

Question 9

What is the difference between a trait and a state

Answer 9

Trait: the avg version of yourself that is relatively stable
State: how you are in different situation, changes based on context.

Question 10

What is the working self concept?

Answer 10

A subset of self knowledge that is brought go mind in particular contexts, with experiences most relavant to the current situation.

Question 11

What can influence the sense of self?

Answer 11

• Gender
• culture (interdependent vs indépendant)

Question 12

In terms of gender, what can impact differences?

Answer 12

• differences may come from:
• socialisation (portrayal in media, treatment by parents, friendships)
• Evolutionary theory

Question 13

Define what is meant by a self construal

Answer 13

• how individuals define themselves in relation to others

Question 14

Define what is meant by social comparison

Answer 14

• when people compare themselves to others to evaluate their own opinions, abilities and internal states

Question 15

What are 2 types of social comparison

Answer 15

• upward comparision: comparing with people who are better - eg how far can I go
• downward comparison: when you compare with people who are worse.

Question 16

Define self esteem

Answer 16

• the overall positive or negative evaluation and individual has of themselves. Usually measured by self report.

Question 17

What is the difference between trait self esteem and State self esteem

Answer 17

• Trait is an enduring level of regard for yourself and is relatively stable across time.
• the state self esteem is the level of regard for yourself currently and can change over a period of time.

Question 18

Describe what is meant by contingencies of self worth

Answer 18

• the idea that self worth is based on success and failure in domains that are important to oneself.

Question 19

Describe the sociometer hypothesis

Answer 19

• where self esteem is an internal subjective index or marker of the extent to which a person is included or looked on favorably by others.
  Eg our self esteem helps us address how we are doing socially.

Question 20

Describe the cultural differences in self esteem

Answer 20

• individualistic cultures care more about self esteem, where as collectivist cultures care more about self improvement.

Question 21

Describe the results of the study by Heine et al

Answer 21

• pps given false feedback for a task
• Japanese pps who were given failure feedback worked longer on a second task
• Canadian pps only worked longer on a second task when they were told they performed well.

Question 22

Define self enhancement

Answer 22

A person’s desire to maintain or increase or protect their self-view/esteem

Question 23

Describe the aspects of the better-than-average effect

Answer 23

• the idea that most westerners think they are better than the average person on most personality traits.

Question 24

When is the better than average effect likely to occur?

Answer 24

• with vague traits rather than concrete traits.

Question 25

How does self affirmation work?

Answer 25

Following a psychologically threatening piece of information, a person can maintain an overall sense of self worth by affirming a valued aspect of themselves unrelated to the threat.

Question 26

Define self complexity

Answer 26

• the tendency to define oneself in terms of multiple domains that are unrelated to each other.

Question 27

Describe self verification theory

Answer 27

• when people strive for a stable, accurate beliefs about themselves, we ted to have a memory that is more selective for self consistent info
• this creates coherence and allows us to more accurately predict outcomes for ourselves.

Question 28

Describe what is meant by self regulation

Answer 28

• the process by which people modify their behavior in pursuit of long term goals including the ability to resist short term rewards.

Question 29

How are descrepensies between the actual and ideal self solved?

Answer 29

• Promotion focus: focus on positive outcomes when working toward the ideal self
• prevention focus: avoid negative outcomes when working toward the ought self.

Question 30

What is meant by implementation intentions?

Answer 30

• an if-then plan to engage in goal directed behavior whenever a particular cue is encountered. Eg: if my friend makes a rude comment, I will ignore it.

Question 31

What is meant by implementation intentions?

Answer 31

• an if-then plan to engage in goal directed behavior whenever a particular cue is encountered. Eg: if my friend makes a rude comment, I will ignore it.

Question 32

What is impression management?

Answer 32

• when we attempt to control how other people view us.

Question 33

Describe what is meant by self monitoring

Answer 33

The tendency to monitor one’s behaviors to fit the context or expectations of others.

Question 34

Describe what is meant by self handicapping

Answer 34

• the tendency to engage is self deprecating behavior to prevent others from assuming a poor performance was due to a lack of ability.

Question 35

What is triangulation?

Answer 35

• using a variety of research methods to study a single topic which helps counterbalance weaknesses of each and provide converging evidence for a particular hypothesis.