Chapter 2 Reviewer - Social Psychology PDF

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CHAPTER 2 – THE SELF IN A SOCIAL WORLDSocial cognition – scientific study of how we think about one anotherSPOTLIGHTS AND ILLUSIONS  Spotlight effect – belief that others are paying more attention to our appearance and behavior than they really are; seeing ourselves center stage, thus intuitively o...

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CHAPTER 2 – THE SELF IN A SOCIAL WORLD Social cognition – scientific study of how we think about one another SPOTLIGHTS AND ILLUSIONS  Spotlight effect – belief that others are paying more attention to our appearance and behavior than they really are; seeing ourselves center stage, thus intuitively overestimating the extent to which others attention is aimed at us  Illusion of transparency – illusion that our concealed emotions leak out and can be easily read by others  we also overestimate the visibility of our social blunders and public mental slips, but research says that what we agonize over, others may hardly notice and soon forget  other examples of the interplay of our sense of self and the world: o social surroundings affect our selfawareness o self-interest colors our social judgement  when problems arise in a close relationship, we attribute more responsibility to our partners than to ourselves o self-concern motivates our social behavior  we monitor others’ behavior and expectation and adjust our behavior accordingly o social relationships help define our sense of self  how we think of ourselves is linked to the person we are with at the moment  when relationships change, our self-concept can change as well  our ideas and feelings about ourselves affect how we respond to others and others help shape our sense of self SELF CONCEPT: WHO AM I? At the center of our worlds: Our Sense of Self  self-concept – what we know and believe about ourselves  medial prefrontal cortex – neuron path located in a cleft just behind our eyes, helps stitch together our sense of self

self-schemas – beliefs about elf that organize and guide the processing of self-relevant information o the specific beliefs by which we define ourselves o mental templates by which we organize the world o it powerfully affects how we perceive, remember, and evaluate other people and ourselves o Also helps us in retrieving our experiences Social Comparisons - evaluating one’s abilities and opinions by comparing oneself with others - others help define the standard by which we define ourselves - we compare ourselves and consider how we differ - schadenfreude – German word for pleasure in others’ failures - social comparison can diminish our satisfaction in other ways Other people’s judgements  Looking-glass self – by Charles H. Cooley o Describes our use of how we think others perceive us as a mirror for perceiving ourselves  George Robert Mead defined the concept o Notes that what matters for our selfconcept is not how others actually see us but the way we imagine they see us 

Self and Culture  Individualism – concept of giving priority to one’s own goals o Defining one’s identity with regards to personal attributes o Independent self – construing one’s identity as an autonomous self o Industrialized western cultures o Power of personal control  Collectivism – identifying oneself in a group o Emphasis on social connections and participation  We create culture and likewise culture influence us  Growing individualism in cultures  Culture and cognition

Collectivist when asked to think about their mothers, a brain region associated with the self became activated – an area that lit up for westerners when they think about themselves Culture and Self-esteem  In collectivist culture, self-esteem tends to be malleable  In individualistic cultures, self-esteem is more personal and less relational  When east meets west, east becomes individualistic because culture can shape selfviews even in a short period of time only o

Self-knowledge - Sometimes we think we know, but our inside information is wrong Predicting our behavior  If we want to predict our behavior like daily routine, don’t ask yourself ask somebody o If we want to know if our relationship would last, ask your roommate  Planning Fallacy – it Is the tendency to underestimate how long it will take to complete a task o one of the most common error in behavior prediction o to improve self-prediction; we must estimate how long each step of the project would take, thus predict in detail not holistically Predicting our feelings  Affective forecasting reveals that we have the greatest difficulty predicting the intensity and duration of their emotions  Impact bias – overestimating the enduring impact of emotion-causing events o Faster than we expect, the emotional traces of such events evaporate quick o We neglect the speed and power of our coping mechanisms The wisdom and illusions of self-analysis  we are more aware of the results of our thinking than of its processes  analyzing why we feel the way we feel, make our judgements less accurate  Dual attitude system – differing implicit (automatic) and explicit (conscious) attitudes toward the same object

Verbalized explicit attitudes may change with education and persuasion easily o Implicit attitudes change slowly with practice that forms new habits that replaces old ones  Ex is gut feeling The limits of our self-knowledge have two implications: o Self-reports are often untrustworthy – errors in self-understanding limit the scientific usefulness of subjective personal reports o Personal testimonies are powerfully persuasive, but they may be wrong even if people report their experiences with complete honesty o

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NATURE AND MOTIVATING POWER OF SELFESTEEM  Self-esteem – a person’s overall self-evaluation or sense of self-worth; sum of all our self-views across all domains o Self-esteem is contingent to the domains that is important to us  Ex. Some people will feel high self-esteem when made to feel smart and good-looking, others when made to feel moral o Feedback is best to our self-esteem when it is true and specific  having a high-esteem is not beneficial at all times, we may relax for an upcoming exam because “I am smart” then flunk it thus having low grade Self-esteem Motivation  research says that self-esteem is more important than sex, pizza, and beer  when we experience low self-evaluation and negative feedback, we feel more schadenfreude (joy at another’s misfortune) because misery loves to laugh at another misery  High self-esteem people usually react to selfesteem threat by blaming other people or trying harder next time because it preserves their positive feeling for themselves  Low self-esteem people are likely to blame themselves and give up

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self-esteem gauge alert us to threatened social rejection motivating us to greater sensitivity to others’ expectation social rejection lowers self-esteem and makes people eager for approval terror management theory – proposes that people exhibit self-protective emotional and cognitive responses when confronted with reminders of mortality  reality of our death motivates us active pursuit of self-esteem can backfire because self-worth contingent on external sources makes us experience more stress, anger, and relationship problems  we may lose sight of what really makes us feel good about ourselves  we become less open to criticism, less likely to empathize Self-compassion – leaving behind comparisons and instead treating oneself with kindness

Trade-offs of Low vs High Self-esteem  Low on self-esteem – vulnerable to anxiety, loneliness, and eating disorders. When they are feeling bad or threatened, they take a negative view of things o They are quick to believe that they are criticized or rejected o Boosting of self-esteem by repeating positive praises and hearing positive things about negative experience backfires, it makes them feel worse (I am lovable and at least you learned something) o The preferred way is the understanding responses even when its negative (that really sucks) o Most often a symptom of a tough childhood  Longitudinal study – research on the same people over a period of time or as they grow older  Self-serving perceptions (I am smarter and more successful) are useful because it gives us hope in difficult times (self-fulfilling prophecy)  Self-esteem does not cause better academic achievement or superior work performance o Self-control is worth more than selfesteem NARCISSISM: Self-esteem’s conceited sister

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High self-esteem becomes problematic when it crosses over to narcissism or inflated sense of self They usually have high self-esteem but lack empathy to others, they are the most aggressive They lash out when the insult is directed at them in public because it punctures their bubble of superiority When someone is arrogant, we may think that deep down he is covering for his insecurity but that chances are, he feels that he is awesome They say that young people of today lack empathy because we are too focused on our paths to success

Self-efficacy - Our competence and efficiency in doing a task - Belief that you can do something - Strong feelings of self-efficacy for children and adults leads to more persistence and less on anxiety and depression - Leads us to set challenging goals, persist, stay calm and seek solutions rather than ruminate on our inadequacies - Competence + persistence = accomplishment -> self-confidence and self-efficacy grows - Self-efficacy feedback “you tried hard” > selfesteem feedback “you are the best” - To encourage someone, focus on her selfefficacy not self-esteem Self-serving bias - Tendency to perceive oneself favorably - Social psychology’s most provocative yet firmly established conclusion is its potency Explaining positive and negative events  they attribute success to ability and effort but attribute failure to external factors  most prone are those that combine skill and chance (scrabble, politicians, and sports)  self-serving attributions – attribute positive outcomes to oneself and negative outcomes to something else o one of the most potent bias o self-serving because it maintains our positive self-image o blaming failures to external sources is easier than seeing oneself as underserving

distant past failings are often acknowledged but it is followed by a praise (chumps yesterday, champs today) o bias blind spot – we are bias even to our own bias o we see ourselves as objective and others as biased Can we all be better than Average? - People see themselves as better than average person - Subjective qualities give us leeway in constructing our own definition of success - By ambiguous criteria by our own term, we can all see ourselves as relatively successful Unrealistic Optimism - Optimism predisposes a positive approach to life - We have an unrealistic optimism about future life events - Those who aim high has benefit for success, those who aim too high struggle with depression - Illusory optimism – increases our vulnerability because believing that our self is immune to misfortune will lead us to be lax in precautions - optimism defeats pessimism in promoting selfefficacy - Defensive pessimism – a dash of realism that can sometimes save us from the perils of unrealistic optimism o Makes us anticipate problems and motivates effective coping - Success requires enough optimism to sustain hope and enough pessimism to motivate concern False Consensus and uniqueness  False consensus effect - Tendency to overestimate the commonality of our opinions and undesirable or unsuccessful behaviors o We find support to our propositions by overestimating how much others agree with it o When we fail, we think that our lapses are common o We guess that others think as we do, “I lie but doesn’t everyone?” o Occur when we generalize from a small sample

Also, we are more likely to spend time with people who share our attitudes and behavior and consequently judge the world from the people we know False uniqueness effect – tendency to underestimate the commonality of our abilities and desirable behaviors o serves our self-image by seeing our talents and moral behaviors as unique o “a band isn’t cool when everybody is listening to them” o We see our failures as normal and our virtues as exceptional o

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 Explaining Self-serving bias - Occurs because of error in how we process and remember information about ourselves which creates multiple opportunity for flaws - We remember the good thing that we did but not what our partner did - Self-affirmation leads us to be motivated to enhance our self-images - Trying to increase self-esteem helps power our self-serving bias HOW DO PEOPLE MANAGE THEIR SELFPRESENTATION? Self-Handicapping - protecting one’s self image with behaviors that create a handy excuse for later failure - “I’m really not a failure, I would’ve done well except for this problem” - Partying or playing games the night before exams - Sabotage oneself because it is more deflating to try hand but still fail. If we fail, we have an excuse and still cling to our sense of competence. If we succeed, it will only boost it even more - “I was out too late the night before rather than I lack the ability or talent” - Fearing failure would lead to: o Reduced preparations o Giving opponents an advantage o Perform poorly at the beginning o Not try hard enough as they could Impression Management

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we are social animals, performing to an audience because so great is the human desire for social acceptance which can lead people to risk harming themselves self-presentation – act of expressing oneself designed to create a favorable impression that corresponds to one’s ideals o our desire to present a desired image to an external (other people) and internal (ourselves) audience o may increase our mood when we “put our best face forward” o social interactions are a balance of looking good while not looking too good people might self-handicap if the failure will make them look bad self-monitoring – being attuned to the way one presents oneself in social situations and adjusting one’s performance to create a desired impression o social chameleons – adjust behavior to external situations o conscious self-presentation is a way of life for some o they are less committed to relationship and most likely to be dissatisfied in marriage o a delicate balancing act to present oneself that creates a good impression false modesty phenomenon – we display a lower self-esteem than we privately feel, but when we perform extremely well, there is an insincerity disclaimer “I did well, but it’s no big deal” o modest yet competent o to make good impressions requires social skill

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO HAVEE SELF-CONTROL?  The self’s capacity for action has limits 1. People who exert self-control (suppressing forbidden thoughts or forcing oneself to do something) quit faster 2. People who tried to suppress emotional responses has decreased physical stamina and tend to be more aggressive to their partners 3. People who have exerted self-control on something else tend to become less restrained in sexual thoughts and behaviors

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4. When we are hungry and tired, we have decreased willpower to go against the usual decision 5. Self-control requires energy (mental and physical), energized individuals are able to better control their impulses Effortful self-control depletes our limited willpower reserves; it is weaker after exertion and replenished with rest and strengthened by exercise Practicing self-control in one area, improves overall self-control A little self-control now means you will need less self-control later...