Ch. 2 - The Self in a Social World

Spotlight effect

the belief that others are paying more attention to one’s appearance and behavior than they really are

• seeing ourselves at center stage

Illusion of transparency

the illusion that our concealed emotions leak out and can be easily read by others

Self-concept

what we know and believe about ourselves

• Most important aspect of yourself is your self

• Neuroscientists have explored brain activities and suggest an important role for the right hemisphere

Schemas

mental templates by which we organize our world

Self-schemas

Beliefs about self that organize and guide the processing of self-relevant info

Social comparison

Evaluations of one’s opinions and abilities by comparing oneself with others

• sometimes based on incomplete info

• can diminish satisfaction

Looking-glass self

our use of how we think or imagine others perceive us as a mirror for perceiving ourselves

Individualism

the concept of giving priority to one’s own goals over group goals and defining one’s identity in terms of personal attributes rather than group identifications

• western culture is generally individualistic

• In an individualistic culture, the goal is to enhance one’s individual self and make independent choices

Independent Self

Controlling one’s identity as an autonomous self—as a unique individual with particular abilities, traits, values, and dreams

Collectivism

Giving priority to the goals of one’s group and defining one’s identity accordingly

• results in different ways of thinking

• In a collectivist culture, the goal of social life is to harmonize with and support one’s communities

What is self-esteem like in a collectivist culture?

Self-esteem is malleable (context specific) rather than stable (enduring across situations)

• conflict in collectivist cultures often takes place between groups

What is self-esteem like in individualistic cultures?

Self-esteem is more personal and less relational

• Westerners like to make comparisons with others to boost their self-esteem

• individualist cultures breed more conflict (crime and divorce) between individuals

Planning Fallacy

tendency to underestimate how long it’ll take to complete a task

Affective forecasting

people have the greatest difficulty predicting the intensity and the duration of their future emotions

Impact bias

overestimating the enduring impact of emotion-causing events

• People have a tendency to neglect the speed and strength of their coping mechanisms

• Ex: pocha

Dual attitude system

automatic, implicit attitudes regarding someone or something often differ from consciously controlled, explicit memories

Self-esteem

a person’s overall self-evaluation or sense of self-worth

• We have high self-esteem when we feel good about the domains important to our self-esteem (such as looks or intelligence)

• In turn, when we have high self-esteem, we are more likely to value those domains

• Specific self-perceptions have some influence

• Feedback is best when it is true and specific; in contrast, very general positive feedback can have negative results 

Terror management theory

proposes that people exhibit self-protective emotional and cognitive responses when confronted with reminders of their mortality

low vs high self-esteem

People low in self-esteem are more vulnerable to anxiety, loneliness, eating disorders, and intentional self-harm; and they experience more problems in life

• Longitudinal studies found people who had low self-esteem as teens were more likely to later be depressed

People with high self-esteem are more likely to savor and sustain the good feelings when good things happen

• Self-esteem fosters initiative, resilience, and pleasant feelings

• Self-esteem does not guarantee success, however; and many violent, destructive people have high self-esteem

high self-esteem and narcissism

High self-esteem is problematic when it crosses over into narcissism—having an inflated sense of self

• Narcissism goes together w Machiavellianism and antisocial psychopathy

• People who score high on measures of narcissism also score high on measures of self-esteem

Self-efficacy

a sense that one is competent and effective; how competent we feel on a task

• Leads us to set challenging goals and to persist

• Grows with hard-won achievements

Self-efficacy vs self-esteem

If you believe you can do something, that’s self-efficacy

If you like yourself overall, that’s self-esteem

Self-serving attributions

a form of self-serving bias; the tendency to attribute positive outcomes to oneself and negative outcomes to other factors

• ex: if ur friend’s late u think they’re a bad person but if ur late u think it’s bc u were j late

• Self-serving bias also appears when people compare themselves with others

  • On subjective, socially desirable, and common dimensions, most people see themselves as better than the average person

Defensive pessimism

the adaptive value of anticipating problems and harnessing one’s anxiety to motivate effective actions

• also important to listen to criticism

False consensus effect

the tendency to overestimate the commonality of one’s opinions and one’s undesirable or unsuccessful behaviors

False uniqueness effect

the tendency to underestimate the commonality of one’s abilities and one’s desirable or successful behaviors

Self-Serving Bias

May occur because of errors in how we process and remember info about ourselves

• Because comparing ourselves with others requires us to notice, assess, and recall their behavior and ours, there are multiple opportunities for flaws in our info processing

Motives may be involved in our biased perceptions

• Striving for self-esteem helps power our self-serving bias

Self-handicapping

protecting one’s self-image with behaviors that create a handy excuse for later failure

• Ex: performing poorly at the beginning of a task to not create unreachable expectations

Self-presentation

expressing oneself and behaving in ways designed to create a favorable impression (ex: the “humblebrag”)

Self-monitoring

being attuned to the way one presents oneself in social situations and adjusting performance for the desired impression

• Ex: acting in diff ways in front of diff friend groups