Week 2 Flashcards
Describe characteristics of the social self (4)
- not indépendant of environnement
- is constructed, maintained and negotiated in the social environment.
- it is malleable
- dynamic not static
What are the 3 primary components of the self?
- 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.
Define a Schema
- 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.
Define a self schema
- a cognitive structure derived from past experience that represents a persons’ beliefs and feelings about or self in general, and in specific situations.
How does a self schema form?
- experiences: stored in memory as part of consceintiousness
Describe what is meant by self reference effect
- better memory for info related to ourselves
Describe what is meant by the looking glass self
- 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.
Define situationism
- there is a core, relatively stable pool of self knowledge, which then shifts with a given situation.
What is the difference between a trait and a state
Trait: the avg version of yourself that is relatively stable
State: how you are in different situation, changes based on context.
What is the working self concept?
A subset of self knowledge that is brought go mind in particular contexts, with experiences most relavant to the current situation.
What can influence the sense of self?
- Gender
- culture (interdependent vs indépendant)
In terms of gender, what can impact differences?
- differences may come from:
- socialisation (portrayal in media, treatment by parents, friendships)
- Evolutionary theory
Define what is meant by a self construal
- how individuals define themselves in relation to others
Define what is meant by social comparison
- when people compare themselves to others to evaluate their own opinions, abilities and internal states
What are 2 types of social comparison
- upward comparision: comparing with people who are better - eg how far can I go
- downward comparison: when you compare with people who are worse.
Define self esteem
- the overall positive or negative evaluation and individual has of themselves. Usually measured by self report.
What is the difference between trait self esteem and State self esteem
- 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.
Describe what is meant by contingencies of self worth
- the idea that self worth is based on success and failure in domains that are important to oneself.
Describe the sociometer hypothesis
- 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.
Describe the cultural differences in self esteem
- individualistic cultures care more about self esteem, where as collectivist cultures care more about self improvement.
Describe the results of the study by Heine et al
- 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.
Define self enhancement
A person’s desire to maintain or increase or protect their self-view/esteem
Describe the aspects of the better-than-average effect
- the idea that most westerners think they are better than the average person on most personality traits.
When is the better than average effect likely to occur?
- with vague traits rather than concrete traits.
How does self affirmation work?
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.
Define self complexity
- the tendency to define oneself in terms of multiple domains that are unrelated to each other.
Describe self verification theory
- 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.
Describe what is meant by self regulation
- the process by which people modify their behavior in pursuit of long term goals including the ability to resist short term rewards.
How are descrepensies between the actual and ideal self solved?
- Promotion focus: focus on positive outcomes when working toward the ideal self
- prevention focus: avoid negative outcomes when working toward the ought self.
What is meant by implementation intentions?
- 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.
What is meant by implementation intentions?
- 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.
What is impression management?
- when we attempt to control how other people view us.
Describe what is meant by self monitoring
The tendency to monitor one’s behaviors to fit the context or expectations of others.
Describe what is meant by self handicapping
- the tendency to engage is self deprecating behavior to prevent others from assuming a poor performance was due to a lack of ability.
What is triangulation?
- 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.
