Chapter 2 SocPsyc

2. The Self in a Social World

Spotlights and Illusions: What do they teach us about ourselves? 

• Spotlight Effect 

  • The belief that others are paying more attention to our appearance and behavior than they really are 

  • Means seeing ourselves at center stage, thus intuitively overestimating the extent to which others’ attention is aimed at 

• Example: most observers did not actually notice the embarrassing t-shirt that they were wearing

• Illusion of transparency

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

• If we’re happy and we know it, then our face will surely show it. And others, we presume will notice—they won’t

• Research shows that we agonize over , others may hardly notice and soon forget

How spotlight effect and related illusion of transparency are shown to interplay between our sense of self and our social worlds

• Examples:

  • Self-interest colors our social judgement; When problems arise in a close relationship we usually attribute more responsibility to our partners than to ourselves. When things go well we think we’re responsible 

  • Social surroundings affect our self awareness 

  • Self-concern motivates our social behavior

  • Social relationships help define our sense of self

Self-Concept: Who am I?

• Self concept: what we know and believe about ourselves

  • The elements of our self concept, the specific beliefs by which you define yourself 

    • Self schemas:

      • “I am ___”

    • Possible selves:

      • “I wish to become ___”

      • “I fear becoming ___”

    • Factors 

      • Genetics

      • Social Roles

      • Social Comparisons

      • Culture’

• Self schema: beliefs about self that organize and guide the processing of self-relevant information.

  • Schema: Mental templates for organizing our worlds

• Perceiving ourselves as athletic, overweight, smart, or anything else—powerfully affect how we perceive, remember, and evaluate other people and ourselves

• If athletics is your self-concept, then you will tend to notice others’ bodies and skills 

• Possible selves: Images of what we dream of or dread becoming in the future

• Social Comparisons

  • Evaluating one’s abilities and opinions comparing oneself with others

    • Upward Comparison

    • Downward Comparison

  • Others help define the standard by which we define ourselves as rich or poor, or smart or dumb, tall or short 

• Example:

  • Someone who excelled in an average highschool goes to an academically selective university. “The big fish is no longer in a small pond”

• The roles we play

  • New roles begin as playacting then become reality

• Self-esteem: a person’s overall self-evaluations or sense of self-worth

  • When there are issues of self esteem you can’t see yourself clearly

• Individualism 

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

• Independent self

  • Construing one’s identity as an autonomous self 

• Collectivism 

  • Giving priority to the goals of one’s group (often one’s extended family or work group) and defining one’s identity accordingly

• Examples:

  • Compared with US church websites, Korean church websites place more emphasis on social connection and participation and less on personal spiritual growth and self-betterment

• The Factor of Culture:

  • Collectivist cultures give rise to an interdependent self

    • Self identity is defined by group membership 

    • Asia, Africa, Central America, South America

    • Collectivism: group goals > self goals

  • Known in cross-cultural research to give rise to a relational and interdependent self.

    • Selves are overlapping 

  • Individualist Cultures

    • Tend to perceive what stands out

    • Tend to arrange things in terms of category 

    • Slanted towards choosing individual choices

    • Language: for self-expression

  • Known in cross-cultural research to give rise to a separated and independent self

    • Selves as self contained with distinct boundaries

• Development Processes:

  • Success and Failure 

    • Our own daily experiences cause us to have empowerment or low self-esteem

  • Other people’s judgements 

    • Looking-glass self

      • How we think other perceive us as a mirror for perceiving ourselves

Linking Self-Concept with Self-Knowledge

Biases in self-perception

• Spotlight effect

  • Belief that others are paying more attention to one's appearance and behavior than they really are

• Illusion of transparency

  • Illusion that the depth our concealed emotions leak out can be easily read by others

  • Truth: fewer people notice than we presume

Examples how they relate to each other 

• We overestimate the visibility of our blunders

  • Unless they have self-interest, most people are too preoccupied with their own overestimations

• Social context affect self-awareness

  • When we notice we are different, we become hyper-focused on our differences.

  • Ex. In another country and you call out “kabayan to another Filipino abroad”

• Self-interest colors social judgement

  • Fundamental Attribution error

• Self-concern motivates our social behavior

  • We seek to make a positive surface-level impression

• The social relationships we have (help) define our sense of self:

  • How we present ourselves dependent on who we are with at the present moment

  • How we think about ourselves is similarly dependent

  • Changing relationships strongly change us

Self knowledge: How do I describe, explain, predict, control myself?

• Planning fallacy

  • The tendency to underestimate how long it will take to complete a task

• Examples:

  • On average, students finished 3 weeks later than their “most realistic” estimate

• Often flawed and limited

  • (Extreme) misattributions

  • Logical fallacies (e.g. planning fallacy)

  • Close friends are strangely more accurate

  • Affective forecasts are often inaccurate

• Prediction of one’s emotions are skewed by a variety of factors

  • Low/non-arousal

• When not aroused, they easily mispredict how they will feel and act when aroused–which can lead to unexpected professions of love during lust, to unintended pregnancies, and to repeat offenses among sex abusers who have sincerely vowed “never again”

• Hunger

• When you are hungry, you mispredict how gross those deep-fried donuts will seem when you are sated

• Actual exposure to emotional triggers (vs numbers)

• Extremity of event:

  • Impact bias: overestimating the lasting effects of serious events

• Example:

  • When you lose your non-dominant hand, you recover much more easily than you think because we underestimate our resilience

• Immune neglect: Underestimating our capacity to be resistant, to cope, and to solve 

• Mental processes for control =/= mental processes for describing, explaining, predicting:

  • Easily verbalized factors are often not the reasons for behavior

  • Dual attitude system: differing implicit and explicit attitudes toward the same object. Verbalized explicit attitudes may change with education and persuasion; implicit attitudes change slowly, with practice that forms new habits 

    • Implicit attitudes: behavioral control

    • Explicit attitudes: behavioral explanations

Self-esteem: Am I worthy?

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

• A person’s overall evaluation of oneself. Theorized as a gauge for social rejection.

  • High: 

    • Increased initiative, resilience, positive affect 

    • Not strongly related to academic achievement or morality

  • Low:

    • Decreased life and relationship satisfaction

    • Theorized to come from tough(er) childhoods

  • Can be stable or unstable

• Terror management theory: proposes that people exhibit self-protective emotional and cognitive responses (including adhering more strongly to their cultural worldviews and prejudices) when confronted with reminders of their morality

  • Managing self-esteem as a means to manage our fear of death; “to feel our lives are not in vain.”

  • “Why am I not live laugh love life, in some island right now”

• Narcissism

  • Not self-esteem

  • Narcissism does not have a “caring” component

    • More concerned about superiority and dominance

  • Used to justify and/or moderate self-esteem evaluations

  • Can exist on a collective level

• Self Efficacy: a sense that one is competent and effective, distinguished from self-esteem, which is one’s self worth. A sharpshooter in the military might feel high self-efficacy and low self-esteem.

  • Kids who were told “You’re really smart” were afraid to try again compared to kids who was given self-efficacy feedback

• Cultural Factors:

  • Collectivist cultures: lower self esteem and narcissism

    • Related to what other’s think of one’s group

    • Upward social comparison motivates self-improvement

    • Failing increases persistence

  • Individualist cultures

    • Defined more personally; personal success and values 

    • Comparisons are made to boost self esteem 

    • Success itself as a motivator for persistence

Social Self: What is expected of me?

• Perceptions of self control 

  • Self efficacy: a sense of one’s competence and effectiveness

    • a sense that one is competent and effective, distinguished from self-esteem, which is one’s self worth. A sharpshooter in the military might feel high self-efficacy and low self-esteem.

    • Kids who were told “You’re really smart” were afraid to try again compared to kids who was given self-efficacy feedback

  • Locus of control: One’s belief regarding source of control

• Self-Serving Biases: Tendency to see oneself in a favorable pattern

  • False consensus: Seeing one’s shortcomings and opinions as commonplace (i.e. normal, acceptable)

  • False uniqueness: Seeing one’s abilities and achievements as distinct

• Self-Serving attributions: A form of self-serving bias; the tendency to attribute positive outcomes to oneself and negative outcomes to other factors

  • Divorced people usually blame their partner for the breakup 

  • Managers often blame poor performance on workers’ lack of ability or effort while workers blame external factors such as excessive workload or difficult co-workers

• Defensive pessimism: the adaptive value of anticipating problems and harnessing one’s anxiety to motivate effective action

  • Students who exhibit excess optimism (as many students destined for low grades do) benefit from self-doubt, which motivates study. 

  • Students who are overconfident tend to underprepared

  • Their equally but less confident peers study harder and get higher grades

• False consensus effect: The tendency to overestimate the commonality of one’s opinions and one’s desirable or unsuccessful behaviors

  • Facebook users were 90 percent accurate at estimating when they agreed with their friends on political and other issues

  • But they were only 41 percent accurate in estimating disagreement

  • They thought their friends agreed with them more than they actually did

• False uniqueness effect: the tendency to underestimate the commonality of one’s ability and one’s desirable or successful behaviors =

  • Dutch college students preferred being part of a larger group in matters of opinions such as politics

  • But wanted to be part of a smaller group in matters of taste such as musical preferences 

• Impression management 

  • Self-presentation: managing behaviors to project a desired image to an audience a

  • Self-monitoring: The extent that one observes and tailors his or her behavior towards a socially favorable impression

  • Self-handicapping: creating behaviors that serve as possible excuses in the case of failure

  • Self-control: consciously controlling our behavior (to hold societal expectations)

    • Requires both cognitive and physical resources

    • Can be treated/exercised similar to a muscle 

      • Strengthens with practice

      • Needs some rest after use

      • Results are transferable to other contexts

• Self-monitoring: being attuned to the way one presents oneself in social situations and adjusting one’s performance to create the desired impression

  • High self monitoring people are people who post more on Facebook and receive more “likes” from friends

  • Low self monitoring people normally comes across as insensitive boor