L2 Social Perception pt 1

The cocktail party effect

Tendency of picking a personally relevant stimulus, eg in a noisy environment you pay attention when your name is said bc its personally relevant to you

Self recognition

Recognizing yourself, humans become capable of this at 18-24 months

How does the brain respond to perceiving info related to the self?

Increase activity when shown stuff related to the self, such as a pic of self, self relevant words, first pov videogame

What is the social self

A sense of who we are forged by others

Self knowledge derived from social relationships

constructed, maintained and negotiated in social environments

ABC aspect of social self

A: Self esteem (Affective) → How ppl evaluate themselves

B: Self presentation (Behavioural) → How people present themselves
C: Self concept (Cognitive) → How ppl come to understand who they are

Explain self esteem

• Individual’s positive or negative self evaluations

• An attribute that can greatly impact how we think about and present ourselves

• A state of mind that fluctuates in respond to life events

• Relatively stable

• Impacted by environmental events

• Typically goes up, peaks then goes down throughout life

• Higher self esteem usually predicts success in life

What is trait vs state in self esteem?

Trait is the enduring level of self esteem one possesses across time, relatively stable

State is the dynamic and changable self evaluations that are momentarily experienced

Trait and State are captured differently, eg longitudinal studies for trait self esteem and daily diaries for state self esteem

General vs domain self esteem

General self esteem differs from domain self esteem, as self esteem in different domains tend to not be consistent and vary between individuals much more

Why do we have self esteem? Explain with reference to a theory (s)

The pursuit of self worth is an aspect of human motivation.

Sociometer theory → Ppl are inherently social animals. A need for self esteem is driven by desire to connect w others and get their approval, this leads to an inner sociometer in some, which detects acceptance and rejection which then translates into hi or low self esteem.

Terror management theory → We r biologically programmed for life and life preservation, since we know of inevitable death, we cope with this by constructing worldviews on how the world was created to give meaning to life, and to give us purpose and a sense of self esteem, also to buffer against anxiety. Self esteem shields from terror.

Impact of high and low self esteem

Higher → happier, more confident and successful, can persist longer at difficult tasks and maintain independence under pressure

Lower → more pessimistic, prone to failure, lack confidence and bring a losing attitude that creates a toxic cycle of failure

Costs of pursuing high self esteem

Become anxious, stressed, and neglect needs of others and self

Signs of unrealistically high self esteem

Inflated egotism → Not warranted by obvious facts, actually fragile and insecure

Narcissism → Grandiose perceptions of self, overexaggeration of positive traits

Ppl like this might react aggressively to threats to their self-esteem, resort to violence to assert their feelings of superiority, try to dominate others.

What factors determine how ppl feel about themselves? use a theory to explain

Self discrepancy theory → Self esteem is determined by the match or mismatch of how we see ourselves and how we want to see ourselves that form a relationship in a triangular model

Actual self → contains all info you have of what kind of person you are
Idea self → who you want to be (dreams)
Ought self → who you think you should be (responsibilities)

We compare these selves against each other and often fall short, resulting in emotional reactions like dissapointment. Factors affecting the intensity of emotions are the amount of discrepancy between selves, the importance of the discrepancy and how much we focus on the discrepancies

What does self esteem depend on?

• Successes and failures in domains you base your self worth on, ie that r important to you

• rises when ur doing well in those domains, vice versa

• some parents base their self worth on their children, when their children does bad, they lose face, which is a bad way of parenting 

What role does culture play in self esteem?

More independent cultures foster higher self esteem, most likely due to cultural values that promote independence and uniqueness

Explain Self concept

Sum of individuals beliefs about own attributes, made up of cognitive molecules, such as self schemas, that guide processing of self relevant info


Ppl more attuned to info related to their self schemas, and process related info faster

Where do self concepts come from?

Family, other people, introspection, autobio memories and narrated self (stories of self that is told)

Self perception theory

Ppl can learn abt themselves by watching own behaviour. Especially when the situation alone seems insufficient to have caused their behaviour or their internal states are weak or difficult to interpret

People do not infer their own internal states from behaviour that occurred in the presence of compelling situational pressures such as reward or punishment or time pressure.

What are some things that can trigger self perception

Facial expression and body posture, eg if im smiling, i must be happy

Is our knowledge of the self accurate?

Our knowledge of our internal traits are more accurate that others, as only we know who we truly are, want to be and aspire to be. However, others percieve our observable traits more accurately than ourselves bc of our desire to maintain self esteem

We are so motivated to maintain self esteem that we have blind spots in self evaluation to maintain it. 

What is social comparison theory?

We evaluate ourselves by comparing us to others. We do it in times of uncertainty, both upwards and downwards

Downward → compare w someone worse than u, uplifting effect and helps us defend from negative perceptions of self and cope

Upward → compare w someone better than u, might result in feelings of envy or insecurity

Super prevalent on social media rn

Self enhancement

Thinking highly of yourself, better than average, especially when it comes to personal traits that are important to u

Processes that serve self enhancement

Implicit egotism → unconscious, subtle expression of self esteem

Self serving bias → Thinking better things will happen to them and showing an optimistic bias towards life, which can result in illusions of control

Self handicapping → Come up with reasons to excuse future performance, purposefully sabotaging ourselves to prevent the damage to self esteem if we fail

Reflected glory → Associating with successful ppl to feel successful as well, may cut off ppl that are not up to standard bc association w them will lower self esteem and reflect faliure

Cultural influence on how self is percieved, evaluated and presented

Differences in cultural dimensions eg individualist and collectivist, some strive for independence and uniqueness while others strive for harmony, in turn influences how u present, evaluate and percieve urself in context of a group

What are the independent and interdependent views of self?

Independent → The self contains a set of psychological qualities that are independent to other people.

The person is a kind of “container” that stores psychological traits that cause the person’s actions.

We have independent rights, such as the right to pursue personal happiness.

Interdependent → Self is influenced by the individual’s roles within family and social relationships and emphasizes responsibilities that accompany these roles.

Behavior is not explained in terms of autonomous mental traits that reside in the person’s head.

People explain behavior in terms of networks of social obligations. It is the person’s location within such social systems that is seen as the cause of behavior.

Explain self presentation

Behavioural expression of the social self, the strats we use to shape other’s perceptions of us, most ppl are at least a little concerned of how they appear to others

Spotlight effect

Tendency to believe we are being paid attention to more than we actually are

Strategic self presentation and its goals

We may present ourselves to others in order to achieve a goal:

Ingratiation → acts motivated by the desire to want to get along w others

Self promotion → acts motivated by the desire to be recognized for our competence

Costs of self presentation

Eating disorders in women, Drug abuse in teens to impress peers, Accidental injury in young men who do risky things to impress peers

Self verification

Desire for others to see us as how we see ourselves so we can confirm our self concepts

Self verification vs self enhancement

Sometimes our need for self verificatoin trumps self enhancement, we will give up looking good or presenting well for others to accept who we really are

Self verification strats

Displaying identity cues thru dress, entering relationships that maintain our sense of self, even if the views of self is toxic

Self monitoring

Regulate behaviour in response to self presentation concerns in a situation, to meet demands of social situations

high self monitors regard themselves as pragmatic, flexible and adaptive

• able to cope with the diversity of life’s roles.

• willing to change colors like a chameleon just

  to fit in

• have a repertoire of selves from which to draw.

Low self monitors describe themselves as principled and forthright

• always speaking their minds so others know

  where they stand

• be viewed as stubborn, insensitive to their surroundings

• unwilling to compromise in order to get along

self monitoring drops with age, probably bc ppl are more secure about their self image when they get older

Summarize the nature of social self 

• the self is complex and multifaceted

• the cognitive, affective and behavioral components of the self is interrelated

• the social self is defined by two truths: malleable and relatively stable