Unit: Social Psychology (Bernstein)

Social influences on the self 

• Self concept- the beliefs we have about “who” we think we are 

• Self-esteem- our evaluations about our “worth” as a human being

Social comparison 

• Self evaluation comes in from two ways 

1. Those comparison that can be made by taking objective measurements 

2. And those that cannot 

• Temporal comparison- comparing yourself over “time”

• We consider the way we are know and the way we were in the past 

• Propriospect 

• Social comparison:

• We evaluate ourselves in relations to others 

• Who is our basis for comparison?

1. Social comparisons in the 1950s- I love lucy

2. Social comparison in the 1970s- divorced tv shows 

3. Social comparison in the 1990s- the bill cosby shows

4. Social comparison now

• Reference groups example-

• You start training for your self defense 

• When you compare yourself with weaker examples to make you feel better; this is called downward social comparison. 

• If you are comparing yourself to someone who is clearly superior to you; this is called upward social comparison.

• Relative deprivation: Belief that, in comparison to a reference group, one is getting less than deserved.

• Terror management theory: idea that humans are the only human being that understands we will eventually die.

• This causes many people terror 

• To overcome this terror, people would use self esteem

• Social identity theory: words chosen are a key element in our personal identity. 

• For example our jobs, parents or students, political affiliation and ethnicity. 

• We do this to find out tribe or group of people as it would bring us confidence; self schema 

• Occupational identity: the difference between doing and being 

• Familial identity: the starting point in a strong self-identity. Mobilizing family values. Such as Mexicans and Italians.

Possible selves: Represents individuals ideas of what they might become, what they would like to become, and what they are afraid of becoming, thus provide a conceptual link between cognition and motivation.

Social perception: the manner in which we process other people's behavior and action.

• Typically we have developed mental representations about them when he have self esteem, if we have low self esteem your representations might be “she is here to take my job”, or “damn why do i have to teach this terrorist.”

First impressions: studies demonstrate that the average individual decides whether or not someone is trustworthy within 1/10 of a second. 

• Other influences:

1. Name 

2. Food preferences 

3. Temperament 

4. Negative influences carry heavier weight then the positive ones 

• Lasting impressions: 

1. Negative information about someone causes us to avoid people thereby not learning new information about them.

2. We like our world simple, unnecessary new information may complicate things 

3. When our acquaintance had made an impression and we accept the, when they village the schema it will go ignored many times before causing damage. 

Self-fulfilling prophecy: if you're told something enough times, you will start to believe it. 

Attribution theory: process of explaining behavior

• Antecedents: what we think we know about someone or a group. 

• Attribution: giving reason to actions or behavior 

• Consequences: the real reason for behavior 

• Fundamental attribution error: continue to explain someone's behavior based off their internal behavior such as religion or menstrual cycle.

• Ultimate attribution error: crediting an “out-group“ person's success to luck. Ex, Obama's presidency. 

• Stable attribution: when you believe a system will continue to suck. Or believe people will be stupid forever

• Unstable attribution: optimist

Consensus: if your dad says trevor sucks and then everybody thinks trevor sucks

Consistency: if your dad allows trevor to come over and one day he says no he is this 

Distinctiveness: if your father likes all your friends except trevor and if he hates all of them he is not distinct. 

Attribution cont. 

• Disposition causes: causes relating to the internal traits of an individual

• Situation causes: causes relating to external or environmental events. In social psychology, understanding the balance between disposition and situation causes is crucial for comprehending behavior, as it highlights how much of our actions are influenced by personal characteristics versus situational factors.