Social Psychology: The Self in a Social World

Vocabulary flashcards covering core psychological concepts related to the self, including self-concept, culture, self-knowledge predictions, self-esteem, self-efficacy, self-serving biases, and self-presentation.

Spotlight Effect

Seeing ourselves at center stage, thus intuitively overestimating the extent to which others' attention is aimed at us.

Illusion of Transparency

The illusion that our concealed emotions leak out and can be easily read by others, causing us to overestimate the visibility of our internal states and social blunders.

Self-Schema

Mental templates and specific beliefs by which we define ourselves, powerfully affecting how we perceive, remember, and evaluate other people and ourselves.

Social Comparison

Evaluating one's abilities, opinions, and traits by comparing oneself with other people, who help define the standard by which we define ourselves.

Schadenfreude

A German term referring to the private pleasure or joy taken in a peer's failure or misfortune.

Looking-Glass Self

Charles H. Cooley's concept describing our use of how we think others perceive us as a mirror for perceiving ourselves.

Individualism

A cultural orientation that gives priority to one's independent personal goals over group goals and defines identity in terms of personal traits rather than group memberships.

Collectivism

A cultural orientation that places greater value on respecting and identifying with the group, giving priority to group goals, and defining identity accordingly.

Interdependent Self

A sense of self embedded in social memberships and relationships, where identity is constructed in relation to others, common in collectivistic cultures.

Holistic Thinking

Perceiving and thinking about objects and people in relationship to one another and to their surrounding environment, characteristic of East Asian cognitive styles.

Planning Fallacy

The common error in behavior prediction involving underestimating how long it will take to complete a task.

Affective Forecasting

The process of predicting future feelings, in which people often struggle to accurately forecast the intensity and duration of their future emotions.

Impact Bias

Overestimating the enduring impact of emotion-causing events, particularly negative events.

Dual Attitude System

A psychological phenomenon where automatic, unconscious implicit attitudes regarding someone or something differ from consciously controlled explicit attitudes.

Self-Compassion

Leaving behind comparisons with others and instead treating oneself with kindness and accepting one's own flaws.

Narcissism

An inflated sense of self characterized by feelings of superiority, self-centeredness, a demand for higher status, and a lack of empathy for others.

Self-Efficacy

A sense of how competent and effective one feels on a task or in accomplishing a specific goal.

Self-Serving Bias

A widespread tendency to perceive oneself favorably across various situations.

Self-Serving Attributions

A form of self-serving bias in which positive outcomes are attributed to internal factors (such as ability or effort) and negative outcomes to external factors (such as bad luck or difficulty).

Defensive Pessimism

An adaptive coping strategy that involves anticipating potential problems and harnessing anxiety to motivate effective action and preparation.

False Consensus Effect

The tendency to overestimate the extent to which others agree with one's opinions or share one's undesirable or unsuccessful behaviors.

False Uniqueness Effect

The tendency to underestimate the commonality of one's abilities, talents, and desirable or moral behaviors.

Self-Handicapping

Sabotaging one's own chances for success by creating impediments or excuses so that potential failure can be attributed to external factors rather than a lack of ability.

Self-Presentation

Expressing oneself and behaving in ways designed to present a desired image to both an external audience (other people) and an internal audience (oneself).

Self-Monitoring

Being attuned to the way one presents oneself in social situations and adjusting one's performance to create the desired impression in response to external situations.