Chapter 3 The Self What is self esteem o The positive or negative overall evaluation that each person has of himself or herself Where does the self concept come from o Self concept comes from the situation and how we think of ourselves in that situation o We view ourselves through the eyes of others and incorporate their perceptions of us into o Responses from others What is the looking glass self our self concept o How others react to us is very important This is much more important How does politeness impact self insight What are independent and interdependent construals o Those with an independent self construal de ne themselves in terms of internal attributes such as traits abilities values and preferences The focus is on internal causes of behavior The self is construe as a distinct autonomous entity separate from others and defined by distinct traits and preferences o In contrast those with an interdependent self construal de ne themselves in terms of their relationships with others The self is fundamentally connected to other people The imperative is for a person to find a place and fulfill appropriate roles within the community and other collectives families and organization The self is construed as connected to others and defined by duties roles and shared preferences and traits What are upward and downward social comparisons o Upward the way you look at people that are a level higher compared to you Can provide information on how to improve Can inspire you to work towards your goals o Downward Only seeking people that are on a lower level compared to you If the goal is to feel good about the self you tend to seek and compare yourself to people that are lower than you Define BIRGing and CORFing o BIRGing Basking in Reflective Glory o CORFing Cutting Off Reflected Failure What are the premises of self evaluation maintenance theory o If a close other excels in unimportant activity then people BIRG Ex Cougs win then people tend to say WE won o If a close other excels in personally relevant activity then people feel envy Distance self from the person Decrease importance of activity Can lead to sabotage What does self evaluation predict will happen when o Self evaluation a model that maintains that people are motivated to view themselves in a favourable light and that they do so through two processes reflection and social comparison In areas that are NOT especially relevant to our self definition we engage in REFLECTION whereby we flatter ourselves by association with others accomplishments Ex A friend scores a winning goal and you re sad but your own athletic skills but you still beam with pride and likely to bask in their glory When a domain is relevant to our self definition we engage in COMPARISON assessing how our abilities or performance stack up to that of others Ex When we are superior to others the comparison is downward enabling us to maintain favourable self views What are the three positive illusions o Overestimate our amount of control o Unrealistic optimism o Overestimate good traits successes Also downplay underestimate faults and failures o Also Makes people feel good about self Important vaccine against depression and anxiety May inspire people to try things they otherwise wouldn t May hinder conflict resolution Know and understand the way we maintain overly positive self views self comparison choices attributions information processing o Biases in social comparison choices o Attributions self serving bias Explaining positive and negative events People tend to attribute success to their ability and effort internal attribution People tend to attribute failure to bad luck or the problem s difficulty external attributions o Information processing Can I Must I What is false consensus False uniqueness o False consensus we tend to underestimate the commonality of our opinions and undesirable behaviors e g politics lies More for negative situations and undesirable behaviors o False uniqueness we tend to underestimate the commonality of our abilities and desirable behaviors We tend to think that we are better than everyone else More for positive situations and desirable behaviors How are self serving biases adaptive How are they maladaptive o Self serving attributional bias the tendency to attribute failure and other bad events to external circumstances but to attribute success and other good events to oneself What are the appraisal consistency and self enhancement motives What happens when they compete o They are motives that influence knowledge of the self Appraisal to learn accurate information about the self Consistency to learn information about the self that corresponds with what we already know Makes the world more controllable Cognitive affecting beliefs about the self Self enhancement to learn favourable information about the self even if it s not accurate Emotional affecting feelings about the self o When these motives compete Self enhancement usually wins the consistency and accuracy last But that depends on your goals in the situation and the nature of the task o If the ability is changeable or you perceive it to be changeable you more often adopt a goal of appraisal over self enhancement o People who are in competent don t realize they are incompetent because they don t know What are the two burdens of incompetence what good is o Inability to distinguish failure from success What does it mean to say that the unskilled are unaware Do they become more aware when offered money as an incentive How does the self reference effect work o Self reference effect events consistent with our self schemas are More thoroughly processed Integrated into the self Remembered more quickly than events less consistent with our self schemas o The tendency for information that is related to the self to be more thoroughly processed and integrated with existing self knowledge thereby making it more memorable Ex People are more accurate in recalling trait adjectives when the traits have been considered to apply to themselves What is the self concept The working self concept Self schemas o Self concept a person s answer to the question Who am I o Working self concept the aspects of who you are that are brought to mind in a particular situation o Self schemas cognitive structures representing beliefs and feelings about the self that are specific to particular domains What are the consequences of the self referent effect o Research suggests that to the extent that you personalize