chapter 5 social psych

self-concept: the overall set of beliefs people have about themselves and their attributes

• affect: emotions and feelings

• behaviors: knowledge of actions

• cognitions: beliefs about the self

→ EXPERIMENTS:

• gallup and anderson: put red dots on animals heads and placed a mirror in front of them, chimpanzees and apes looked and touched the dot on their heads, while other animals did not, showing that they have some self awareness and self concept to recognize this

• the rogue test: placed a red dot on children’s heads and placed a mirror in front of them, until 18 months they were unable to tell the dot was on themselves and not on a different person

development of self concepts:

• human self-concept develops at 18-24 months

• primates, dolphins, and elephants also have self concept

• 2 year olds begin to focus on easily observable characteristics

• in adolescence to adulthood, people focus on physiological states, and how others perceive us

cultural differences in defining the self:

• western cultures:

  • emphasize agency and personal success

  • defines self in independent view

    • independent view of self: a way of defining oneself in terms of ones own internal thoughts, feelings, and actions, and not in the terms of the thoughts, feelings, or actions of others

• eastern/asian cultures:

  • emphasize group cohesion, interpersonal harmony, and the importance of others

  • defines self in the interdependent view

    • interdependent view of self: a way of defining oneself in terms of ones relationship to other people, recognizing that one’s behavior is often determined by the thoughts, feelings, and actions of others

introspection: the process whereby people look inward and examine their own thoughts, feelings, and motives

• people are bad at it, often wrong

• reasons for feelings/behaviors are often outside of conscious awareness

• it can be difficult to judge why we feel the way we do

→ EXPERIMENT:

• nisbett and wilson 1977: participants watched a boring documentary, group 1 just watched normally, group 2 the video was blurry, and group 3 there was a powersaw outside the room. everyone was asked how much they enjoyed the film, then groups 2 and 3 would be asked if the distractions interfered with their enjoyment.

  • all groups liked the documentary to the same extent, however, when groups 2 and 3 were asked about how the distraction affected their enjoyment, they said that the distraction made the film less enjoyable.

  • overall, people came to incorrect conclusions regarding their true feelings using introspection

casual theories: theories about the causes of ones own feelings and behaviors, often we learn such theories from our culture

• often wrong

• ex. bad sleep will put you in a bad mood

  • EXPERIMENT: college students recorded their moods everyday for 5 weeks, they kept track of what they thought might predict their moods, such as weather, workload, sleep.

  • at the end, the students estimates how much their mood were predicted by these variables, and the data analysis showed that in many cases the estimates were wrong.

  • people are good at figuring out what mood they are in but not why

reason-generated attitude change: attitude change resulted from thinking of the reasons for ones own attitude

• you have a reason to like X, when someone asks you to generate different (easily verbalized) reasons, a decision may be based on the reasons you just generated, and not real reasons

self-awareness theory: the idea that when people focus their attention on themselves, they evaluate and compare their behavior to their internal standards and values

• can be good if it helps shine spotlight on positive behaviors or accomplishments

• can act as a moral compass

self-perception theory: the theory that when our attitudes and feelings are uncertain or ambiguous, we infer thee states by observing our behavior and the situation in which it occurs

• people judge whether their behavior really reflects how they feel or if the situation made them act that way

  • attitudes:

    • EXPERIMENT: wells and petty 1980: participants listened to opinion statements about stuff they didnt have a strong opinion on while either shaking their head the entire time, or nodding their head the entire time, and were told they were testing out the strength of new headphones

    • then they were asked who agrees with the opinion statement more, with the nodder agreeing with the statement more frequently than the head shakers

    • people subconsciously inferred their own attitudes form their physical behavior

  • motivation:

    • intrinsic motivation: the desire to engage in an activity because we enjoy it or find it interesting, not because of external rewards or pressures

    • extrinsic motivation: the desire to engage in an activity because of external rewards or pressures, not because we enjoy the task or find it interesting

    • self-perception theory says that rewards that increase external motivation to do something will eventually decrease internal motivation to do something

      • overjustification effect: the tendency for people to view their behavior as caused by compelling extrinsic reasons, making them underestimate the extent to which it was caused by intrinsic reasons

        • EXPERIMENT: children showed interest in a math game, but once they were given rewards for time spent on the game the time played increased significantly, but once the rewards went away the interest in the game dropped significantly, even lower than the original interest

        • rewards undermine interest only if initial interest was high, and the type of reward matters

      • task contingent rewards: rewards that are given for preforming a task, regardless of how well the task is done

        • almost always decrease intrinsic motivation as no matter how you do you will always be rewarded

      • preformance contingent rewards: rewards that are based on how well we preform a task

        • less damaging to intrinsic motivation as it conveys message that you are good at something and boost self-esteem and motivation

  • emotions:

    • we can infer why we have the emotions we have by observing our behavior

      • two-factor theory of emotion: the idea that emotional experience is the result of a two-step self-perception process in which people first experience physiological arousal and then seek an appropriate explanation for it

        • physiological arousal: activation of the nervous system, with sweating, increased heart rate etv

        • facial feedback hypothesis: changes in facial expression can lead to corresponding changes in emotion

          • even if subconsciously smiling, the body will process that, and attribute it to being a good mood

        • misattribution of arousal: the process whereby people make mistaken inferences about what is causing them to feel the way they do

          • EXPERIMENT: dutton and aron 1974: study where an attractive woman approaches men to ask them to fill out a stufy and can call her later, half were approached on a moving suspension bridge, and the other half were approached on a small bridge over a stream, leading to arousal due to fear, to see if that arousal would be translated to be occuring because of seeing an attractive woman leading to an increase of the men calling her.

          • more men from the tall bridge called the woman back as they misattributed the arousal from the fear of the bridge to arousal by how attractive the woman is

          • did the study again with everyone on the same bridge, half were approached on the bridge and half approached ten minutes after resting from the bridge, the men that were approached on the bridge reached out more than those that were given a break

mindset:

• fixed mindset: the idea that we have a set amount of an ability that cannot change

• growth mindset: the idea that we learn about our abilities and attitudes by comparing ourselves to other people

SOCIAL COMPARISON

social comparison theory: learning about our abilities and attitudes by comparing ourselves to other people

1. people are motivates to accurately evaluate their own opinions and abilities

2. in the absence of an objective base of comparisons, people use a social base

3. to gain accurate information, people compare themselves to similar others

upward social comparison: comparing ourselves to people who are better at a particular trait or ability

• ex. me comparing my basketball skills to jayson tatum

• ex. comparing my singing abilities to taylor swift

downnwards social comparison: comparing ourselves to people who are worse at a particular trait or ability

• ex. me comparing my basketball skills to a 5 year old

→ why do we engage in upward vs downward social comparison

• motivated to be accurate = social comparison to similar others

• motivated to feel good about self = downward social comparison

• motivated to achieve a future advanced goal = upward social comparison

activity:

1= below avg 2= avg 3= above avg

1. how would you rate your intelligence: 2

2. what kind of student are you: 2

3. how attractive are you: 2?

4. how likeable are you: 2

SELF ESTEEM

self esteem: evaluations of our self-worth; the affective component of the self

→ high self esteem: viewing ourselves as good, competent, and decent

• motivational function

• protective function

• implementation intentions- peoples specific plans about where, when, and how they will fulfill a goal and avoid temptations

IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT

• how do you want to come off to others? what do you want them to think of you?

impression management: attempt by people to get others to see them as they want to be seen

its all about self-presentation! some strategies:

• conform

• intimidation

• self-promotion

• modesty

two other strategies:

• ingratiation- using flattery or praise to make ourselves likeable to another person

→ usually used toward somebody of a higher status

• self-handicapping: creating obstacles and excuses for ourselves so if we do poorly on a task, we can avoid blaming ourselves

self handicapping:

→ why do we self handicap?

-failing at something doesnt feel good

-protects self esteem if we do fail

→problems with self-handicapping

-self-fulfilling prophesy

-other people do not form positive impression of self handicappers

behavioral self handicapping: behaving in a way that reduces the likelihood that we will succeed

• example: pulling an all-nighter

reported self-handicapping: coming up with excuses

• example: complaining about not feeling well when you take a test

→gender differences:

• men more behaviroal

• women more reported

culture and impression management:

• culturally universal desire to manage image we present

→cultural differences:

• kinds of images we present (eg. saving face is important in asian culture)

SELF CONTROL

self control: making choices about the present and plans for the future

• executive function of the self

stanford marshmallow experiment:

-delayed gratification

-1 small reward now, or 2 later

• wait longer (ie. more self control) = better life outcomes

self regulatory resource model:

→ views self control as a limited resource

• ego depletion (impaired self-control)

• like a muscle that gets tired with frequent use

→ ego depletion study

• taste perception study, dont eat 3 hrs before, set up in a room with radishes and freshly bakes cookies

• iv: one condition is eat radishes only (high self control) second is only eat cookies (low self control) and control is no food at all

• dv: persistence on a frustrating unrelated task

• results: cookies and no food persisted for around 20 min, and radishes persisted for less than 10. radish condition were depleted and has less regulator resources to persist on the problem solving task

• take-away: exerting self control in one scenario depletes cognitive resources available for exerting control in a second scenario

to increase self control:

1. practice exerting control

2. set behavioral intentions

3. avoid depleting situations