Transcript C2_Notes_SV
Social Psychology David Myers 10e Copyright 2010 McGraw-Hill Companies 1 Chapter Two • The Self in a Social World 2 Spotlights and Illusions • Spotlights – Spotlight effect • Belief that others are paying more attention to one’s appearance and behavior than they really are • Illusions – Illusion of transparency • Illusion that our concealed emotions leak out and can be easily read by others 3 Research Close-Up: Being Nervous about Looking Nervous • Examples of interplay between our sense of self and our social world – Social surroundings affect our self-awareness – Self-interest colors our social judgment – Self-concern motivates our social behavior – Social relationships help define our self 4 Self-Concept: Who Am I? • A person’s answers to the question, “Who am I?” – Take time to answer this question… • Are your answers more relational (collectivist) or about self (individualist)? 5 At the Center of Our Worlds: Our Sense of Self • Schema – Mental templates by which we organize our worlds • Self-schema – Beliefs about self that organize and guide the processing of self-relevant information 6 At the Center of Our Worlds: Our Sense of Self • Possible Selves – Images of what we dream of or dread becoming in the future Oprah Winfrey 7 Development of the Social Self • What Determines Our Self-Concept? – Roles we play – Social identities we form – Comparisons we make with others – Our successes and failures – How other people judge us – Surrounding culture 8 Development of the Social Self • Roles We Play – New roles begin as play-acting then become reality • Social Comparisons – We compare ourselves with others and consider how we differ • We tend to compare upward • Can diminish satisfaction 9 Development of the Social Self • Success and Failure – Our daily experiences cause us to have empowerment or low self-esteem • Other People’s Judgments – Looking-glass self • How we think others perceive us as a mirror for perceiving ourselves 10 Self and Culture • Individualism – 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 • Independent self • Western cultures 11 Self and Culture • Collectivism – Giving priority to the goals of one’s groups and defining one’s identity accordingly • Interdependent self • Asian, African, and Central and South American cultures 12 Self and Culture • Culture and Cognition – Richard Nisbett’s The Geography of Thought (2003) • Contends that collectivism results in different ways of thinking – Asians tend to think more in relationships than Americans 13 Self and Culture • Culture and Self-Esteem – In collectivist cultures • Self-concept is context-specific rather than stable • Conflict takes place between groups – In individualistic cultures • Self-esteem is more personal and less relational • Conflict takes place between individuals – Crime – Divorce 14 Self-Knowledge • Explaining Our Behavior • Predicting Our Behavior – Planning fallacy • Tendency to underestimate how long it will take to complete a task 15 Self-Knowledge • Predicting Our Feelings – Studies of “affective forecasting” reveal 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 • Immune neglect – Tendency to neglect the speed and strength of the “psychological immune system” which enables emotional recovery and resilience after bad things happen 16 Self-Knowledge • The Wisdom and Illusions of Self-Analysis – Dual attitude • Automatic implicit attitudes regarding someone or something often differ from our consciously controlled, explicit attitudes 17 Self-Esteem • Our overall self-evaluation or sense of selfworth – Specific self-perceptions have some influence – Feedback is best when it is true and specific 18 Self-Esteem Motivation • Self-esteem maintenance • Self-esteem threats occur among friends whose successes can be more threatening than that of strangers 19 The “Dark Side” of Self-Esteem • Narcissism – Delroy and Williams (2002) • “The Dark Triad” of negative traits – Narcissism – Machiavellianism (manipulativeness) – Antisocial psychopathology 20 Perceived Self-Control • Effortful self-control depletes our limited willpower reserves – Our brain’s “central executive” consumes available blood sugar when engaged in self-control 21 Self-Efficacy • How competent we feel on a task – Leads us to set challenging goals and to persist 22 Locus of Control • Extent to which people perceive outcomes as internally controllable by their own efforts and actions or as externally controlled by chance or outside forces 23 Learned Helplessness versus SelfDetermination • Learned Helplessness – Hopelessness and resignation learned when a human or animal perceives no control over repeated or bad events • Martin Seligman • Self-Determination – Development of self-discipline in one area of your life may cause self-control in other areas as well 24 Excess Freedom • The Costs of Excess Choice – Too many choices can lead to dissatisfaction with our final choice – People tend to be generally happier with decisions when they can’t undo them 25 Self-Serving Bias • Tendency to perceive oneself favorably – Explaining Positive and Negative Events • Self-serving attributions – Tendency to attribute positive outcomes to oneself and negative outcomes to other factors » Contribute to marital discord, worker dissatisfaction, and bargaining impasses 26 Self-Serving Bias • Can We All Be Better than Average? – Most people see themselves as better than the average person on the following dimensions • Subjective • Socially desirable • Common 27 Self-Serving Bias Areas in which we believe we are above average • • • • • Ethics Professional competence Virtues Intelligence Tolerance • • • • • Parental support Health Insight Attractiveness Driving 28 Self-Serving Bias • Unrealistic Optimism – Is on the rise – Illusory optimism increases our vulnerability • Defensive Pessimism – Adaptive value of anticipating problems and harnessing one’s anxiety to motivate effective action 29 Self-Serving Bias • False Consensus Effect – Tendency to overestimate the commonality of one’s opinions and one’s undesirable or unsuccessful behaviors • False Uniqueness Effect – Tendency to underestimate the commonality of one’s abilities and one’s desirable or successful behaviors 30 Self-Serving Bias • Explaining Self-Serving Bias – Self-serving bias is a by-product of how we process and remember information about ourselves • Self-Serving Bias may be – Adaptive • Protects people from depression – Maladaptive • Group-serving bias 31 Self-Presentation • Wanting to present a desired image both to an external audience (other people) and to an internal audience (ourselves) – Self-Handicapping • Protecting one’s self-image with behaviors that create a handy excuse for later failure – Self-Monitoring • Tendency to act like social chameleons 32