Week 4: Self & motivation

Question 1

Independent self-concept

Answer 1

a model/concept/construal of self in which identity is thought to come from inner attributes that reflect a unique essence of the individual and that remain stable across situations and across the lifespan. Self is seen as distinct from others.

Question 2

Interdependent self-concept

Answer 2

a model/concept/construal of the self in which individuals are perceived not as separate and distinct entities but as participants in a larger social unit (relational entity), where identity is contingent upon key relationships with ingroup members. Others are an extension of the self.

Question 3

Twenty-statements test

Answer 3

an exercise in which people describe themselves by finishing 20 statements starting with “I am…”. People with an independent self tend to answer with personality characteristics (“I am creative”), while people with an interdependent self tend to answer with social roles like (“I am a younger brother”).

Question 4

What are the different sets of answers to the 20 statements test?

Answer 4

One set: abstract traits, stable characteristics that exist by themselves
Other set: relationships and roles, context-dependent behaviours

Question 5

What was found when applying the 20 statements test to American undergraduates, Kenyan undergraduates, workers and 2 indigenous Kenyan groups?

Answer 5

American and Kenyan undergrads were more likely to describe themselves with personality characteristics than roles and memberships like social identity.
Indigenous Kenyans were more likely to describe themselves in their social identity. There are substantial differences within cultures despite speaking the same language

Question 6

What are the possible explanations for these results?

Answer 6

urbanization (living in the capital of the country); Westernization (tv, media); lifestyle (not living within an extended family); education (having received formal schooling)

Question 7

How is independent self-concept represented?

Answer 7

• Self is experienced as distinct from others (circle of individual doesn’t overlap with others)
• Key aspects of the self lie within the individual (large X= core attitudes, traits, abilities)
• Self is stable (circle around self is solid)
• Ingroup boundaries permeable (still feel closer to ingroup but do not view outgroup as fundamentally distinct)

Question 8

How is interdependent self-concept represented?

Answer 8

• Self overlaps considerably with an individual’s significant relationships, identities are closely connected with others
• Key aspects of the self (X) are based on significant relationships (roles). Roles govern how you feel, behave, not inner attributes.
• Fluid identity, situation-relevant, unstable
• Solid ingroup – outgroup border (you do not easily become ingroup member, nor does ingroup dissolve easily. People might behave very differently towards outgroup members)

Question 9

How can the in-group out-group distinction impact relationships?

Answer 9

In independent cultures, individuals are separated from the social environment so new relationships form and old ones dissolve without a large impact on self-identity. The opposite is true for interdependent cultures

Question 10

What did research find about the relationship between brain activation and self-concept?

Answer 10

Chinese and Western participants thought about how well certain traits characterized themselves and their mother. For Chinese, there was activation in the same brain regions for both tasks in mPFC-> representations not that distinct. For Westerners, there were different regions of brain activation, so different representations for themselves and for their mothers. More activation in mPFC when thinking about themselves, but same patterns of activation in mPFC for Chinese.

Question 11

How does socioeconomic status influence independence/interdependence?

Answer 11

On average, people from higher socioeconomic backgrounds have more independent selves than those from poorer backgrounds. Periods of economic growth tend to be linked to growing rates of independence, while recessions are linked with increasing interdependence.

Question 12

Research looking at motivation supports this. What did they find?

Answer 12

First generation students (working-class) and continuing generation students (middle-class) were compared on ability to solve anagrams. First gen students solved more anagrams and so were more motivated after interdependent messages. Continuing generation students were more motivated after independent messages

Question 13

How is independence and interdependence characterized?

Answer 13

These categories are not discrete, each individual varies in the degree of their independence/interdependence. It can be seen as a continuum, and each culture has variety in their view of self.

Question 14

How does gender impact self-concept?

Answer 14

Men and women were found to be similar in many areas but women scored higher on relatedness, which is attention to others’ feelings and concerns

Question 15

Self-consistency

Answer 15

the extent to which someone acts the same across situations

Question 16

How does self-consistency differ for independent vs interdependent cultures?

Answer 16

Independent cultures value consistency across situations more than interdependent cultures

Question 17

When college students from Japan and US completed the 20 statements test in different contexts what did they find?

Answer 17

• US: responses were, on average, far more positive than the Japanese ones and they looked quite similar across the different contexts.
• Japan: responses varied depending on the situations, being way less self-critical when alone. Lower positive self-view on average
• Could be that internal consistency is related to likability, well-being, and social skills but not in Korea.

Question 18

Cognitive dissonance

Answer 18

the distressing feeling we have when we observe ourselves behaving inconsistently, or against our own sense of self-consistency. We can remove this by:
- Changing our behavior: change our behavior in a way that is more consistent.
- Dissonance reduction: change our attitudes so we no longer appear to be so inconsistent

Question 19

How do dissonance reduction tendencies differ for Canadians compared to Japanese?

Answer 19

• CDs were rated on desirability, participants were told they could not have the most desirable one, and had to take 5th/6th choice home. The CDs were then evaluated again
• Canadians showed clear rationalization, so the CD that was chosen was rated higher and not chosen was rated lower
• Japanese did not ensure consistent decisions, but other studies found that they showed rationalization when making decisions for others

Question 20

How was self-consistency distinguished between peer-consistency in research?

Answer 20

People from Poland and the US were asked to imagine how they would respond to a request by marketing representative from Coca-Cola. They were asked to imagine that they had always complied with the request (self-consistency) or that their classmates had complied with similar requests. In the US they were more likely to comply following self-consistency information, while in Poland they were more likely to comply after peer-consistency information.

Question 21

How does consistency differ within and across situations?

Answer 21

While Westerners show more self-consistency across situations, East Asians show consistency within situations

Question 22

Subjective self-awareness

Answer 22

Independent people are more often in a state of subjective awareness. This is a state of mind in which a person considers the self from the inside out, with the perspective of the subject interacting with the world, having little awareness of the self as an individual

Question 23

Objective self-awareness

Answer 23

Interdependent people are more often in a state of mind in which a person considers the self from the outside in with the perspective of how he or she appears to others and is being evaluated

Question 24

How was creativity influenced by subjective/objective self-awareness?

Answer 24

Hong Kong and American students completed a creativity test and were given high scores and low scores. It was made known that 1 person had seen their scores and participants had to evaluate their own creativity level. For America, self-evaluations were unaffected by which score was seen by someone else while for Hong Kong, they evaluated themselves to be less creative when the low score was seen by someone than when the high score was seen. Interdependent people tend to evaluate themselves based on what they think others think of them while independent people based their self-evaluations on subjective standards

Question 25

How can mirrors affect self-evaluation?

Answer 25

When asked to evaluate themselves on actual-ideal self-discrepancies while being in front of a mirror or not. Americans were more self-critical in front of a mirror than without a mirror present while Japanese were unaffected by the mirror. Independent people are put in a state of objective self-awareness they become more self-critical, which does not change for interdependent people as they are already in this state.

Question 26

What is the explanation for this experiment?

Answer 26

In subjective self-awareness, we consider our self as an acting agent so we have more 1st person memory, high self-esteem, not accurate in predicting behaviour.
In objective self-awareness, consider the self as an object, more 3rd person memory, more self-critical and accurate in predicting behaviour.
Seeing self in memory, forces a switch in me so there is a bigger gap between the ideal and actual self (switch from I to me modus)

Question 27

Implicit theory

Answer 27

a theory that represents a set of beliefs we take for granted, usually without engaging in much active hypothesis testing.

Question 28

What are the different implicit theories about the nature of the self?

Answer 28

• incremental theory of self which is that self-concept can or is expected to change, that abilities and traits are malleable and can be improved. Interdependent cultures endorse these more and blame difficulties on their efforts and strategies
• entity theory of self is that aspects of the self are resistant to change, abilities and traits are fixed, with innate features of the self. Independent cultures are more likely to endorse entity theories and blame any difficulties they face on their ability and traits

Question 29

What are the implications of the implicit theories of self?

Answer 29

Self-concept plays a role in the self, self-consistency and self-awareness. Implicit theories play a role in beliefs related to studying, most Chinese said that intelligence is based on effort while Americans said that intelligence is innate. There is also a difference in reaction to failure vs success and attributions.

Question 30

Five-factor model

Answer 30

model of personality that assumes there are 5 underlying core traits (OCEAN):
- Openness to experience: one’s creativity and curiosity about the world.
- Conscientiousness: how responsible, dependable, and self-disciplined a person is.
- Extraversion: how outgoing, social, or dominant a person is.
- Agreeableness: how warm, pleasant and considerate someone’s temperament is.
- Neuroticism: one’s emotional instability and unpredictability.

Question 31

What are the limitations to the Big Five?

Answer 31

• some cross-cultural research suggests that core traits are highly similar to the Big Five, specific cultures could have other factors
• most studies use WEIRD samples which is problematic

Question 32

How does everyone have similar desires? How does this differ?

Answer 32

Everyone wants to improve the quality of our life but how we get access to these things and the things we find motivating is influenced by cultural environments like what we believe will improve our quality of life

Question 33

Self-enhancement

Answer 33

The motivation to view yourself positively

Question 34

Self-esteem

Answer 34

The positivity of your overall evaluation of yourself

Question 35

What are examples of self-enhancement strategies?

Answer 35

• Self-serving bias: exaggerating one’s positive characteristics.
• Downward social comparison: comparing one’s performance with that of someone doing worse.
• Compensatory self-enhancement: compensating for a poor performance by focusing on success in another area.
• Discounting negative info: reducing the perceived importance of a poor performance.
• External attribution: attributing the reason for an action or event to something outside of oneself.
• Basking in reflected glory: emphasizing one’s connection to successful others and sharing in the
  glow of their success.

Question 36

What is the cultural variation in self-enhancement?

Answer 36

Self-enhancement is more prevalent in individualistic cultures. Westerners, compared to East Asians, even show stronger motivations to enhance their group selves and the objects they own (endowment effect) as well.

Question 37

What are the strategies that interdependent cultures use in response to failure?

Answer 37

• self-criticism
• upward social comparison (comparing your performance with that of someone doing better)
• no compensatory self-enhancement
• increase significance of the domain
• international attribution of failure so attributing the reason for an action or event to internal factors
• critical attitude toward your own team
• modest

Question 38

Endowment effect

Answer 38

The tendency for people to value objects more once they own them and have given them positive qualities. People see a connection between objects and the selves, once the object is owned then the self-view can colour the object. The effect is stronger in Westerners than in East Asiana who show the opposite effect

Question 39

What did research find when listing success or failure experiences in Japanese and Americans?

Answer 39

Americans listed more success than failure memories (62% vs 38%), while Japanese listed less success than failure memories (48% vs 52%).

Question 40

What is the distal explanation for self-enhancement?

Answer 40

Early protestants maintained a belief in predestination (belief about the afterlife holding that prior to birth it has been determined whether one will go to heaven or hell). This resulted in high motivations to interpret events as signs that God was viewing them favourably, so the motivation for self-enhancement grew.

Question 41

What is the proximal explanation?

Answer 41

There is a positive association between independence and self-esteem. When self-concept is more focussed on the self, there is a greater need to view yourself positively. Increased individualism over the years is associated with higher self-esteem and stronger self-enhancement motivations.

Question 42

Face

Answer 42

The amount of social value others give you if you live up to the standards associated with your position. The higher your social position, the greater the amount of face available. It has 2 characteristics, it is easily lost and only maintained by positive evaluations of others

Question 43

Why is face easily lost?

Answer 43

Face can be easily lost by not living up to standards than gained so by upgrading in social position. East Asians have thus strong self-improvement motivations as they are self-critical also on other things outside of themselves that reflect their self-image

Question 44

Self-improvement

Answer 44

Identifying potential weakness and working on correcting them

Question 45

How do Westerners and East Asians differ in their orientations?

Answer 45

• East Asians have a prevention orientation which is protecting yourself from negative outcomes
• Westerners have a promotion orientation which is advancing yourself and aspiring for gains
• when provided with feedback about performance on a creativity task, they were left with other creativity items and timed how long was spent on each task
• Canadians persisted longer after they got success feedback than after failure feedback, while Japanese persisted much longer after they got failure feedback than after success feedback

Question 46

How is face only maintained by positive evaluations?

Answer 46

To ensure that others think of you positively you can present yourself to others in a way that would enhance your face

Question 47

Incremental theory of the world

Answer 47

The belief that our environment is flexible and responsive to our efforts to change things

Question 48

Entity theory of the world

Answer 48

The belief that our environment is fixed and making changes is beyond our control

Question 49

What are the motivations for control?

Answer 49

Primary control which is striving to shape existing realities to fit their perceptions, goals or wishes.
Secondary control is attempting to align yourself with existing realities, leaving circumstances unchanged but exerting control over the psychological impact.

Question 50

How has research investigated these differences in control?

Answer 50

Japanese and Americans were asked to list occasions when they had tried to influence the people or objects around them or when they adjusted themselves to the people or objects around them. Americans were better able to recall primary control situations than secondary control situations. Japanese were better able to recall secondary control situations than primary control situations. Both groups reported to feel more powerful in primary control situations but Japanese did not feel compelled or forced in secondary control situations.

Question 51

How does the perception of power differ for East Asians vs Westerners?

Answer 51

East Asians are more likely to see power and control as resting within groups and Westerners generally view power and control as the responsibility of individuals

Question 52

What did the Nick Leeson fraud find about group agency?

Answer 52

Nick Leeson was convicted of fraud for his part in scandal that resulted in the collapse of a Bank. In US newspapers, they were more likely to explore the scandals in terms of problems with the individual trader, while Japanese newspapers were more likely to report problems in the organizations that allowed the scandal to occur

Question 53

What is the difference in making choices between independent and interdependent cultures?

Answer 53

Independent: less dependence on actions of others, value making choices by themselves, value having many options to choose from, value having a larger proportion of their behaviours based on personal choices.
Interdependent cultures: more concerned about group goals, value choices being made by trusted others and more willing to adjust behaviours and reduce their choices to coordinate with the actions of the group towards those goals

Question 54

What did research find about making choices?

Answer 54

Americans and East Asian students played a math game and assigned to 1 out of 3 conditions: personal choice (allowed to make a number of choices), outgroup choice (choice was made by 3rd grades in the school) and ingroup choice (choice was made by students in their own class). So Americans attempted the most games in the personal choice condition and significantly less when others made the choices, while Asians attempted the most games in the in-group choice condition

Question 55

Learned helplessness

Answer 55

the feeling of being powerless, unable to control or avoid unpleasant or harmful events, leading to stress and possibly depression.

Question 56

How can socioeconomic status influence sense of control?

Answer 56

Working class people have fewer options than middle-class people, grow up learning that much is beyond their control and that maintaining independence is done by emphasizing integrity and resilience during tough times. Working class people were just as satisfied if they got the pen they wanted or given another pen. Upper-middle-class people were much less satisfied in the usurped choice condition

Question 57

How can culture influence motivations for conformity or uniqueness?

Answer 57

For Americans, 75% of participants conformed when the group gave the wrong answer while in collectivistic cultures people conformed even more than Americans. Americans were also much more likely to choose the minority-coloured pen than the majority-coloured as East-Asians did.

Question 58

What does self and wellbeing depend on?

Answer 58

Local context (such as city of residence) as contexts diverge in prevalent historically-derived ideas, norms and products. Boston was found to be old and established so historical and cultural products emphasize traditions, status and community, the social norms are relatively tight. Feelings and selves are socially contingent so more dependency. While San Francisco is new and free, the history and cultural products emphasize unlimited possibility, egalitarianism and innovation, social norms are loose. Feelings and selves are less contingent on others. Different cities in the same country can differ in how to be and wellbeing, more socially contingent in Boston while less contingent in San Francisco.

Question 59

What are the 2 major perspectives on personality and culture?

Answer 59

Etic examines and compares personality across culture, arguing that there are few shared dimensions across cultures (universal, intercultural approach on comparisons). Emic examines personality in specific cultural contexts, separate model of personality for every culture (relativistic, intra cultural approach focussed on unique cultural qualities)

Question 60

Limitations of etic approach?

Answer 60

Instruments may impose a certain structure so there might me missed factors. Even though there is overall generalizability of the big 5, there is similar generalizability of other structures. There may be “blind spots” in the dominant models of personality

Question 61

Limitations of emic approach?

Answer 61

It is limited as it is in the early stages

Question 62

How did the emic approach begin?

Answer 62

Began as the anthropological school of culture and personality during the first half of the 20th century. Since then, indigenous studies focussed on isolated concepts

Question 63

What are the benefits of the etic and emic approach?

Answer 63

With the etic approach, we can ask the big questions in culture and personality. But with the emic approach we can look at the representation of personality embedded in local context

Question 64

Emic-etic approach

Answer 64

an approach to personality and culture that combines the emic and etic approach. It includes computing localized structures of personality and comparing them across cultures.

Question 65

What is the 5 factor model?

Answer 65

• Openness to Experience: Curiosity, imagination, aesthetic sensitivity
• Conscientiousness: Organisation, productiveness, responsibility
• Extraversion: Sociability, assertiveness, energy
• Agreeableness: Compassion, respectfulness, trust
• Neuroticism: Anxiety, depression, volatility

Question 66

What is the psycholexical approach?

Answer 66

The lexical hypothesis argues that personality characteristics perceived as important become encoded in language as single terms. So there is a selection of personality descriptive
words from the dictionary which then become reduced, and there are self/peer-ratings which is analyzed using factor analysis. Studies in other languages other than English found different personality structures.

Question 67

What are the findings from the South-African Personality Inventory?

Answer 67

Inventories were conducted in the local language of different places in South Africa, 6 factors emerged with 4 being similar to factors of the Big 5. The 2 other factors (social relational positive and negative) resemble a broader version of agreeableness. Although there are universal personality factors while others are culture specific. The structure was replicated in different ethnic groups in New Zealand and predicted family orientation and well-being. The emic approach is present in other cultures but not noticed when etic models are only used.

Question 68

What is social relational positive and negative?

Answer 68

Social relational positive: facilitating, warm-hearted, social intelligence, integrity, interpersonal relatedness
Social relational negative: conflict-seeking, deceitfulness, hostility-egoism

Question 69

How does type of self-concept relate to the cultural values of the larger cultural context?

Answer 69

Collectivistic cultural values stress the importance of being connected with others through certain cultural practices, which in turn nurture an interdependent view of self.
Individualistic cultural values stress the importance of being self-sufficient through certain cultural practices, which in turn nurture an independent view of self.

Question 70

Why is physical environment and social environment important for forming self-concept?

Answer 70

• Physical environment: rice-growing regions in China showed higher prevalence of interdependent thinking and holistic reasoning than wheat-growing regions that showed higher prevalence of independent thinking and analytic reasoning. This is an example of a distal cause of culture.
• Social environment: much research shows a correlation btw individualism and education/ social class within the same country. Exposure to higher education can make you more independent. This is an example of a proximal cause of culture.

Question 71

What is personality?

Answer 71

is what distinguishes one individual from the other; differences in characteristic thoughts, feelings, behaviour when situational variables are held constant

Question 72

What is the Chinese Personality Assessment Inventory?

Answer 72

• It is a list of personality traits based on the analysis of cultural messages, questionnaires etc
• 4 factors emerged: individualism (defensiveness, self-orientation), social potency (leadership, adventure, extraversion), dependability (responsibility, optimism), interpersonal relatedness (harmony, relational orientation, tradition)
• no overlap for Big 5 and interpersonal relatedness, but was found for other factors in terms of correlations
• openness to experience has least consistency

Question 73

Main issues in personality tests and solutions?

Answer 73

• construct equivalence is whether personality is conceptualized in the same way
• reference group
• check correlation between behavioural measures and objective observations, found to not correlated well on self-reports

Question 74

What is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs?

Answer 74

• Physiological needs: biological requirements for human survival (food, water, warmth, rest).
• Safety needs: the need for security and safety.
• Love and belonging needs: the need to maintain significant relationships, which includes our motivation for connectedness but how these relationships are structured may differ.
• Self-esteem needs: the need to feel valued and respected, which includes our motivation for self-enhancement, but different ways of feeling valued
• Self-actualization need: the need to achieve our full potential, which includes our motivation for mastery (= control) which could differ across cultures

Question 75

How does the connectedness motivation differ across cultures?

Answer 75

For individualistic culture it is related to the independent self.
So they act as individual agents, distinct from others and concerned with sticking out -> secure uniqueness-> act distinctively from others.
For collectivistic cultures, related to the interdependent self so acting as relational agents. Concerned with fitting in so they secure group harmony so they act consistently with others

Question 76

What is the set-up of the pen study?

Answer 76

Researchers in an airport would ask prospective passengers to fill out a questionnaire. They would pull out of the bag a handful of 5 pens (which were either green or red), and participants had to choose between a minority- and a majority-colour pen. Americans were more likely to be the minority pen than East Asians, similar patterns were found between middle-class and working-class European Americans.

Question 77

What is the Last Judgment?

Answer 77

Individual selves did not emerge in Western Literature until the 12th Century when the Christian concept changed from salvation of collectives to salvation of individual souls being predestined. So the individual certainty about your own fate is the only available cue so there is higher motivation for self-enhancement

Question 78

How is face related to a self-improvement motivation?

Answer 78

1. Cannot readily increase face until promotion
2. Face is difficult to increase and if you don’t live up to the expectations of your role then will be lost
3. Important to attend to own weaknesses and correct them before others can lose them
4. Prevention focus and self-improvement

Question 79

How is self-esteem related to self-enhancement?

Answer 79

1. The individual evaluates himself/herself
2. Self-esteem is something you build on by focusing on your strengths
3. Promotion orientation so aspiring for gains
4. Linked to idea that individuals have dignity (intrinsic value that is equal to that of every other person)

Question 80

What is the mastery motivation?

Answer 80

The capacity of individuals to exert control over the environment to achieve desired outcomes. There is cultural variation in how people actualize the self and the master their environment. Like with different models of agency and different ideas of how people achieve control. The degree in which agency is explained as a function of individual traits, dispositions, reasons, goals, histories, situational variables and enabling circumstances

Question 81

What is disjoint agency?

Answer 81

Argues that actions should be freely chosen, contingent on own preferences, goals, intentions and motives. Decisions are independent from others so the choice is free, autonomous and expression of individual preferences.
Conjoint agency is that actions are responsive to obligations, expectations from others, roles, situations. The preferences, goals, intentions are interpersonally anchored. Choice is freely acting to meet the perceived requirement and consideration of others. Seen in the higher value of interdependent responsibility over personal choice in India, stronger moral obligation to help everyone independent of personal preferences. Absence of preference means not attaching meaning to preferences

Question 82

Why do upper-middle class Americans and working class Americans have differences in their reaction to not having their desired pen?

Answer 82

Upper middle-class Americans are raised to favour choices and express themselves through their choices. So they respond negatively when they believe that they have no choice in a situation.
Working-class Americans grow up learning that much of what others encounter in life is beyond their control, a good way to maintain independent is to emphasize integrity and resilience in difficult times. So they accept and cope with occasions that they don’t end up with what they wanted.

Question 83

Why do Japanese use primary control more often than Americans?

Answer 83

These differences may be related to different socialization practices: e.g., mothers leading play interaction with kids, workers changing jobs less frequently, and other cultural practices that stress the importance of adjusting

Question 84

What are the primary issues with Maslow’s hierarchy?

Answer 84

• Maslow’s needs are phrased in Western terms (e.g., self-esteem, self-actualization)
• The realization of the underlying universal needs is contingent on the cultural context (e.g., self-esteem vs. face)
• The hierarchy itself may not necessarily universal

Question 85

What are the cultural differences in each motivation?

Answer 85

Love and belonging need: how those relationships are structured and to what extend people are motivated to fit in in order to belong differs between cultures
Self-esteem need: self enhancement is not universal and there are other ways to feel valued than through high self-esteem (e.g., face)
Self-actualization need: what is actualized in the self differs across cultures. strive to verify their attributes through individual choice, disjoint agency and primary control (independent cultures), while others strive to verify their public qualities through shared choice, conjoint agency and secondary control (interdependent cultures).

Question 86

What is personality?

Answer 86

An individual’s characteristic patterns of thought, emotion, and behaviour, together with the psychological mechanisms—hidden or not—behind those patterns