Presenting the Self

Self-concept

A mental representation capturing our views and beliefs about ourselves, which can be visualized through artistic self-portraits like those by Frida Kahlo, Norman Rockwell, or Van Gogh (Slide 1 / 4:39).

Self-knowledge

The collection of mental representations and evaluations regarding one's own physique, behavior, traits, abilities, and identities (Slide 2 / 6:54).

Mirror Self-Recognition Test

Gordon Gallup Jr.'s 1970s assessment of self-awareness using a hidden facial mark to see if an individual recognizes their reflection; passed by chimps, dolphins, elephants, and American infants around 15 to 18 months, but failed or resisted by children in non-Western cultures like Kenya due to cultural emphasis on social group harmony rather than individuality (Slide 2 / 7:46 / 11:04 / 12:58).

Self-esteem

An individual's global attitude toward themselves, traditionally evaluated using standard psychometric tools like the ten-item Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Slide 3 / 13:42).

Sociometer Theory

Mark Leary's framework proposing that self-esteem functions like a vehicle's gas gauge, continuously monitoring an individual's level of social acceptance and inclusion rather than measuring actual performance (Slide 5 / 14:26).

Selves-esteem

A revised theoretical perspective suggesting that self-esteem is an aggregated measure of self-attitudes across distinct, domain-specific subselves, such as feeling successful at work while feeling like a failure in romance (Slide 7 / 15:41 / 18:01).

Social Comparison Theory

Leon Festinger's 1954 theory asserting that individuals evaluate their own abilities, beliefs, and opinions by comparing themselves to others, a process frequently triggered in modern digital environments (Slide 8 / 19:03).

Strong Inference

A systematic model of scientific inquiry that directly pits two competing theoretical hypotheses against each other in a single study to determine which best explains the data while avoiding confirmation bias (20:45 / 22:39).

How do Social Comparison Theory and Emotional Contagion Theory differ in predicting social media's impact on mood?

Social Comparison Theory predicts that positive social media posts induce negative affect by highlighting personal relative deficiencies, whereas Emotional Contagion Theory predicts that positive posts infect viewers with positive affect; de Vries et al. (2017) demonstrated that social comparison tendency moderates this effect, with high-comparison individuals feeling worse and low-comparison individuals feeling better (Slide 9-11 / 20:40 / 25:48).

Self-presentation

The process through which individuals attempt to control and manage the impressions that others form of them, likened by sociologist Erving Goffman to theatrical performances complete with scripts, roles, and face-saving conventions (Slide 12 / 26:10).

Humblebragging

A self-presentation strategy where an individual masks a boast within a complaint or expression of frustration; research by Sezer et al. (2018) shows it consistently backfires by reducing perceived sincerity and interpersonal liking compared to direct bragging or plain complaining (Slide 12-13 / 28:06 / 32:56).

Traditional Hypocrite versus Honest Hypocrite

Research by Jillian Jordan showing that traditional hypocrites who condemn a behavior and secretly do it are deeply disliked because they falsely signal moral goodness, whereas honest hypocrites who condemn a behavior but publicly admit doing it negate the false signal and are evaluated less harshly (34:01 / 37:25).

Better-Than-Average Effect

A cognitive bias, also known as illusory superiority, where self-enhancement motives lead individuals to perceive their skills and traits as superior to the population average, such as 80% of drivers rating themselves as better than average (Slide 14 / 38:20 / 39:24).

Trivers' Evolutionary Theory of Self-Deception

Robert Trivers' perspective proposing that non-conscious self-deception evolved as a self-presentation tool to deceive others more effectively by eliminating cognitive load and observable cues of lying (Slide 15 / 42:12).

Delay Discounting

The psychological principle where the subjective value or present worth of a reward decreases as the temporal delay until receiving it increases, as illustrated in Walter Mischel's Marshmallow Test (Slide 16-17 / 48:23).

What self-control strategies can individuals use to overcome delay discounting?

Individuals can use pre-commitment by automating decisions or removing temptations, distraction by redirecting focus away from the reward, cognitive reappraisal by focusing on abstract cold properties rather than tempting hot qualities, and mental contrasting by weighing goal benefits against immediate indulgence costs (Slide 18 / 49:34).

Social Facilitation

Norman Triplett's 1898 finding that the physical presence of others improves task performance speed on simple or well-practiced tasks, later modified by the Yerkes-Dodson Law to show that audience presence impairs performance on complex or unfamiliar tasks (Slide 19 / 50:20 / 52:22).

Bandwidth Tax of Poverty

Mani et al.'s (2013) finding across New Jersey mall visitors and Indian sugarcane farmers pre- and post-harvest showing that monetary worries and poverty consume background mental processing power, creating significant deficits in cognitive capacity and fluid intelligence on tasks like Raven's Progressive Matrices (Slide 20-24 / 54:34 / 59:32).

Frontier Culture and Personality

Varnum and Kitayama's (2011) research showing that geographic frontiers attract individualistic people high in openness to experience who give children more uncommon names, resulting in residents of US mountainous frontiers exhibiting higher openness to experience and lower agreeableness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism (Slide 24-25 / 1:01:41 / 1:03:58).

Spotlight Effect

The tendency for individuals to overestimate the extent to which their actions, appearance, and mistakes are noticed by others, demonstrated by Gilovich's study where students wearing an embarrassing Barry Manilow T-shirt greatly overestimated how many peers noticed it (p. 179).

Public Self-Consciousness

A personality trait characterized by the degree to which an individual chronically believes that others are paying attention to their public appearance and behavior (p. 180).

Self-Monitoring

The chronic tendency to monitor and adjust one's public self-presentations, attitudes, and behaviors to fit surrounding situational norms and social expectations (p. 180).

Social Anxiety

The fear and anxiety associated with self-presentational failure, which chronically affects 30 to 40 percent of Americans as shyness and approximately 2 percent as clinical social phobia (p. 182).

Polygraph

An instrument that records physiological arousal metrics like heart rate, blood pressure, and electrodermal activity to detect deception, which exhibits high false-positive rates because innocent fear or anger produces identical physiological spikes (p. 184).

Ingratiation

An impression management strategy consisting of behaviors intended to get others to like us, including expressing liking, creating similarity, enhancing physical attractiveness, and projecting modesty (p. 186).

Enjoyment Smile versus False Smile

Paul Ekman and Wallace Friesen's facial muscle distinction showing that genuine enjoyment smiles involuntarily contract the orbicularis oculi around the eyes along with the zygomatic major, whereas false smiles lack eye crinkling and appear asymmetrical or jerky (p. 187).

Opinion Conformity

An ingratiation tactic in which an individual alters their expressed public opinions and attitudes to match those held by a desirable target person (p. 189).

Narcissism

A personality trait marked by a grandiose self-image, reduced empathy for others, and an excessive need for admiration, frequently associated with high explicit self-esteem combined with low implicit self-esteem (p. 194).

Multiple Audience Dilemma

The self-presentational challenge that arises when an individual must simultaneously manage impressions for two or more audiences holding opposing values and expectations (p. 196).

Staging Performances

A self-promotion tactic where individuals seek or create public opportunities to demonstrate their competence and skills to observers (p. 223).

Trappings of Competence

Surrounding oneself with visible props, credentials, tools, or artifacts associated with expertise to convey an image of professional qualification (p. 223).

Self-Handicapping

The practice of creating real or feigned obstacles or withdrawing effort prior to a performance to provide a built-in external excuse for potential failure (p. 223).

Competence Motivation

The internal drive and motivation to perform tasks successfully and demonstrate skill to oneself and others (p. 223).

Conspicuous Consumption

The lavish expenditure of money and resources on luxury goods, status symbols, green products, or public gifts to publicly signal wealth and social standing (p. 210).

Basking in Reflected Glory and Cutting Off Reflected Failure

The impression management tactics of associating oneself with successful individuals or groups to boost prestige versus distancing oneself from unsuccessful entities to protect public reputation (p. 210).

Visual Dominance Behavior

A nonverbal display of power where high-status individuals maintain direct eye contact while speaking but look away while listening, whereas low-status individuals look away while speaking and pay visual attention while listening (p. 211).