Unit 10- Module 59

Narcissism

excessive self-love and self-absorption.

Self-serving bias

a readiness to perceive oneself favorably.

Optimism vs. Pessimism

in studying how we interact with our environment, social=cognitive psychologists emphasize our sense of personal control--whether we learn to see ourselves as controlling, or as controlled by, our environment. success requires enough optimism to provide hope and enough pessimism to prevent complacency.

how do individualists and collectivists cultures influence people?

individualists give relatively greater priority to personal goals and define their identity mostly in terms of personal attributes. A Collectivist might experience a greater loss of identity. cut off from groups they would lose their connection. In a collectivists culture, group identifications provide a sense of belonging, a set of values, a network of caring individuals, an assurance of security--they have deeper, more stable attachments to their group

Why has psychology generated so much research on the self? How important is self-esteem to psychology and to human well-being?

the self is the center of personality. Self Esteem impacts a lot of things in life like job performance, sleep, succumbing to pressure, persistence, happiness

Individualism

giving priority to one's own goals over group goals and defining one's identity in terms of personal attributes rather than group identifications

Collectivism

giving priority to the goals of one's group (often one's extended family or work group) and defining one's identity accordingly.

Behavioral approach

in personality theory, this perspective focuses on the effects of learning on our personality development.

who first proposed the social-cognitive perspective, and how do social-cognitive theorists view personality development?

it was first proposed by Albert Bandura. They emphasize the importance of mental processes. instead of focusing on how our environment controls us, as behaviorists do, social-cognitive theorists focus on how we and our environment interact

Self-esteem

one's feelings of high or low self-worth.

Spotlight effect

overestimating other's noticing and evaluating our appearance, performance, and blunders (as if we presume a spotlight shines on us).

What evidence reveals self-serving bias, and how do defensive and secure self-esteem differ?

people accept more responsibility for good deeds than for bad, and for successes then for failures. most people see themselves as better than average. Defensive self-esteem is fragile. it focuses on sustaining itself, which makes failures and criticism feel threatening. Secure self-esteem is less fragile, because it is less contingent on external evaluations.

Albert Bandura

proposed the idea of the social-cognitive theory.

Reciprocal Determinism

the interacting influences of behavior, internal cognition, and environment.

How do social-cognitive researchers explore behavior, and what criticism have they faced?

they observe behavior in realistic situations. critics charge that social-cognitive theories focus so much on the situation that they fail to appreciate the person's inner traits.

Social-cognitive perspective

views behavior as influenced by the interaction between people's traits (including their thinking) and their social context.