MT1 MATERIAL

two self-enhancement strategies

1. advancement: increasing how positively you see yourself 2. protection: decreasing how negatively you see yourself --> self-handicapping: actions or statements you make (obstacles) that allow you to avoid the responsibility for potential failure that could damage self-esteem

personality psychology

1. aims to understand basic human nature eg. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs 2. aims to understand individual differences eg. Big 5 personality traits 3. aims to understand a person's behavior, look at their personality traits --> personality traits help us predict a person's behavior across situations and over time

Analytic vs. Holistic Thinking

Analytic: rule-based categorizations --> more focus on objects and disregarding context (cow and chicken) Holistic: similarity-based categorizations --> more focus on context and relationship (cow and grass)

affective spillover

Because of links between self-aspects, emotions associated with one self-aspect will "spillover" to other self-aspects​ More affective spillover for people with low self-complexity​ --- Because of high degree of overlap/ links between self-aspects​ affective = emotional

study about situational activation

Brought participants into lab... they were told that the research was about a questionnaire trying to validate "elements of personality"​ What the researchers actually did was manipulate whether the participants saw themselves as more extroverted or introverted ​ ---> They embedded in the questionnaires questions that primed people to think of themselves as more extroverted/introverted ​ Found that those in extroverted (vs introverted) condition: - described themselves as more extroverted - acted more extroverted

self-concept clarity (SCC)

Extent to which the contents of the self-concept are:​ clearly defined​ consistent​ stable​ Reflects the extent to which you feel like you know who you are​ lots of research shows that high SCC is associated with better well-being

SCC and well-being

High SCC is associated with:​ Less neuroticism Less rumination about the self Less loneliness Lower feelings of depression and perceived stress Higher self-esteem Higher perception of meaning in life Higher general life-satisfaction Suggests that SCC is important for well-being​

self-complexity as a stress buffer

High self-complexity may serve as a buffer against negative consequences of stressful life events​ People that have high self-complexity have more ways of thinking of themselves ​ When one bad thing in their life is going badly, they can draw from other aspects of their lives to act as a buffer ​

looking glass self

How we see ourselves comes from how others see us​ Often have to rely on how we think others see us​ Evidence: How we see ourselves is often similar to how other people, especially close others, see us

illusions and mental health

Illusions can impact our adjustment to the ups and downs of life as well as challenging major life events​ Illusions are adaptive and appear to be fairly pervasive​

Lecture 1

Introduction to psyc 333

Latinx Culture and Expressive Interdependence

Latin America is considered to be interdependent, but they achieve this interdependence by being emotionally expressive (in contrast to east asians who are emotionally restrained)

Do positive illusions also affect the course of illness?​

Looked at men with AIDS Looking at to what extent people accept the diagnosis (ie. Opposite of optimism) ​ found that men that were more optimistic about their diagnosis lived 9 months longer!!!

affective extremity

Low self-complexity: Greater spillover causes more extreme emotional reactions and changes in self-esteem​ High self-complexity: Less spillover allows for more emotional stability​

Asch's conformity study

Participants were asked to select the line closest in line to length X. When cohorts gave obviously wrong answers, more than 1/3 of the subjects conformed and agreed with the incorrect choices. Depends on group size: 7 is optimal.

Pancultural Self Enhancement

People will self-enhance on traits that are important and consistent with cultural values​ --> People in individualistic cultures will self-enhance on individualistic traits​ --> People in collectivistic cultures will self-enhance on collectivistic traits​ study found that Americans self-enhanced more on individualistic traits, and Japanese self- enhanced more on collectivistic traits​ + regardless of culture, everyone thought they were better than the average

implications of cultural differences on psychological studies

Psychology focuses on people that are WEIRD: western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic. BUT, they only represent 15% of the world So, is it an accurate depiction of all human behavior?

SCC and role transitions

Role transitions are one factor affecting SCC​ Role entries AND exits predict lower SCC if person doesn't feel particularly positively about the way the new role has changed them​ - BUT if people feel good about the change, it doesn't affect their SCC -->Look at lec 4 for study - found that effect os self-concept change on SCC depends on how positive the person feels about the change

the role of social interactions

Self-concept critically depends on social interactions​ 1. looking glass self 2. social comparison 3. social identity theory

self-esteem as a moderator

Self-enhancement is universal, just looks different depending on a person's self-esteem​ High self-esteem: More likely to use self-advancement​ Low self-esteem: More likely to use self-protection​

Stanford Prison Experiment

Stanford University conducted an experiment in a mock prison that demonstrated the power of social roles, social norms, and scripts SPECIFICALLY, the guards started abusing their power and prisoners became VERY submissive Criticized for being very unethical -- wasn't approved and participants weren't told what the experiment was really about ​ + some argue participants were instructed on how to behave ​

study about self-schemata

Study where people went into a lab and got a list of traits ​ Had to rate the traits on how description and important they are to them ​ Researchers was able to categorize people based on their ratings and importance ​ Eg: schematic for dependence means someone rates themselves as dependent on others and thought that was very important ​ THEN they did a reaction time exercise to see how accessible a trait is to someone found that 'core self' traits had a faster RTs (Faster RTs mean that trait is more accessible/ more frequently activated​)

Lecture 2

The self

USA vs Germany: emotional experience

They express emotions differently Americans report a greater desire to avoid negative emotions, while Germans don't feel the need to avoid them --> leads to differences in how sympathy is expressed - Americans r more likely to send sympathy cards that focus on the positive (and Germans do the opposite)

navigating multicultural identity

To what extent are you maintaining your cultural identity? ​ To what extent are you adopting the mainstream culture? ​ ​ --> leads to four ways in which someone navigates their multicultural identity ​ SLIDE 32 - integration - assimilation - seperation - marginalization

self-concept

a knowledge representation that contains knowledge about us, including our beliefs about our personality traits, physical characteristics, abilities, values, goals, and roles, as well as the knowledge that we exist as individuals everything that a person claims as 'me' or 'mine;

distinctiveness theory

a person's unique, distinctive characteristics are more salient to them than characteristics that they have in common with others

implications of self-complexity

affective spillover affective extremity for low self-complexity high self-complexity as a stress buffer

Big Five Personality Traits

all people can be mapped on to these five personality traits

content of self-concept

attributes roles relationships activities goals check ppt for graphs

interactionist consensus

behavior = interaction between personality and situation - effect of personality depends on situation and vice versa - people choose situations that best fit their personality - situations can change personality - people change situations by what they do in these situaitons When the norms are less rigid, personality differences are more likely to show ​

Salvador et al (2020)

compared European Americans, Colombians, and Japanese students on cognition, attributions, and emotional experience --> found that columbians are in between americans and japanese on field dependence/independence --> they are also in between them in making situational vs dispositional attributions Finally, they are more emotonally expressive than Japanese, and similar to americans BUT, express more socially engaging (vs disengaging) emotions than Americans, similar to Japanese

self-schemata

core self aspects of the self that are more central that then guide how we process new information about the self related to the 'frequency of activation' in the self as an associative network

is everyone multicultural?

cultural groups extend beyond ethnicity, nationality, and race independence: west, global north, men, high SES, businesses, liberal religious groups, and coasts interdependent: east, global south, women, low SES, governments, conservative religious groups, and heartlands

how do cultural differences shape the individual?

cultural ideas influence what kind of institutions are present in a society, which influences the way people interact with each other (Eg. school systems look different in different cultures), which then we as individuals come to internalize as values --> importance function of culture is to provide guidance for what is normal and how to be a person --- we internalize this guidance, which shapes our self-concept

Lecture 4

culture and the self 1

lecture 5

culture and the self 2

culture

culture is a loosely integrated system of ideas, practices, and social institutions that enable coordination of behavior in a population

field (in)dependence

degree to which a person's perception is affected by the context or surrounding environment ('field') field dependent = more affected by context/environment field independent: less affected by context/environment ---> east asians are more field dependent = look at context

better than average effect

direct evidence for illusory self-evaluations most people rate their abilities as better than the average person even though it is statistically impossible for most people to be above average further, people tend to see themselves as better-than-average on more desirable trait --- the more desirable a trait, the more people see themselves as better than avergae on this trait (r=0.77) -- the more desirable a trait, the more likely people see this trait as descriptive of themselves (r=0.92)

socially engaging vs disengaging emotions

disengaging: prioritizing the self and self-accomplishement and wanting to feel superior engaging: wanting to feel close, feeling guilt, and emotions involving other humans

multiple selves

even though we feel like we have one 'self', we actually have multiple selves we often experience and describe ourselves differently in different situations we also see ourselves differently in different situations (it's spontaneous and not strategic)

self-enhacement

fundamental motive to see ourselves positively - regulates self-esteem - guides people towards situations in which they believe they will excel or can promote their positive qualities tendency to maintain unrealistically positive views of ourselves universal

lecture 6

illusions about the self 1

lecture 7

illusions about the self 2

Are illusions still adaptive and helpful in more challenging circumstances?​

illusions and men at risk for AIDS Looked at men (some with HIV and some without) and assessed how optimistic they felt about developing AIDS Interesting: men that were HIV+ were more optimistic about their prospect about developing AIDS​ - IE: they thought they were less susceptible ​ - Is this an example of adaptive coping mechanism? Having a health scare makes people more likely to want to protect themselves and be safe ​

low self-complexity and affective spillover

imagine someone gets a bad grade on a course --> this individual will experience this as a hit to self-esteem

how cultures affect self-concept

individualistic cultures promote independent self-concept collectivistic cultures promote interdependent self-concept (slide 15)

cultural differences in cognition

individualistic cultures: - analytic thinking: focus on objects, objects exist independent of context -- rules and categories used to explain behavior and make predictions ---> focuses on individual characteristic of things collectivistic cultures: - holistic thinking: focus on context as a whole, attend to relationships among objects --- relationships used to explain behavior and make predictions

cultural differences in social orientation

individualistic cultures: - attending to self, self-assertion, uniqueness - distinguishing self from others - personal identity - self-interest - 'my way' collectivistiv culture: - attending to group, group harmony, fitting in - fitting self with others - collective identity - social happiness (and suspension of self-interest) - ' the right way'

how parenting differs across cultures

individualistic cultures: - infants spend lots of time with mothers - mothers teach infants early on to spend time on their own (with toys) - babies are expected to sleep alone starting 3 months - parents talk to infant about what a person did and how they feel - emotional self-expression is encouraged collectivistic culture: - infants spend time with multiple caregivers - mothers teach children early on that obedience and respect are important - co-sleeping for the first couple years of life - conversations with children are directive and instructional - parenting is anticipatory (rather than waiting for child to express needs) - emotional self-expression is criticized

and what is best for well-being?

integration is associated with best psychological and sociocultural adaptation marginalization is associated with the worst adaptation seperation is associated with better psychological adjustement than assimilation --> Shows that holding onto heritage identity is very important But it's also important to establish close ties with the new culture

San Martin et al (2018)

investigated assertive interdependence by comparing European Americans, Saudis, Lebanese, and Japanese students on cognition and self-assertion Found that arabs showed holistic cognition similar to japenese but also showed self-assertion similar to americans

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

it describes how every single person operates

accessibility of self-knowledge

it's a function of: 1. frequency of activation (eg. i go to uni everyday and see jana everyday --> these notions are more easily cognitively accessible to me) 2. recency of activation : what was most recently activated (eg. i used to read, but not much. but when i read a book, it reactivated my notion of myself as a reader --> if someone asks me now who i am, i might include a 'reader') ---> part of working self-concept

associative networks

knowledge is organized as a metaphorical network of cognitive concepts interconnected by links links between concepts vary in strength

independence and interdependence in other cultures

latin culture: expressive interdependence arab culture: assertive interdependence german culture: independence

changes in working self-concept

leads to changes in behavior

causal attribution

linking an event to a cause, such as inferring that a personality trait is responsible for a behavior - study about the 'rogue trader' (slide 31) = found that americans are more likely to attribute responsibility to individuals (disposition) = japanese are more likely to attribute responsibility to organizations (situation)

Do individual differences in self-esteem, beliefs about control, and optimism about the future predict adjustment to college?​

method: 2 year study of first year students, assessed every quarter Looked at psychological adjustement and productive work Also examined coping strategies, social support... RESULTS: 1) Adjustement: higher self-esteem and more optimism leads to better adjustement 2) GPA: high self-esteem led to higher GPA Suggests that illusions CAN lead to better outcomes

what strategy is most common?

method: study of immigrant youth from 26 different cultural background and living in 13 dif. countries - assessed multicultural identity strategy - looked at psychological adaptation (ie. life staisfaction) and sociocultural adaptation (ie. school and behavior problems) Found that integration strategy is the most common (especially for those that have been living in the mainstream culture longer)

implications of acculturation findings

minority individuals become psychologically more similar to majority individuals

illusions about the self

most people have illusions about the self: 1. overly positive self-evaluations 2. illusions of control 3. unrealistic optimism bias

summarize illusions of the self

most people have illusions about the self: 1. overly positive self-evaluations 2. illusions of control 3. unrealistic optimism bias --> examples for self-enhacement we know that these are illusions (ie. more positive than warranted) because they are inconsistent with statistical probabilities for a group and/or objective reality such illusions are adaptive and associated with more positive outcomes positive illusions are universal across cultures, but they look different: - people in individualistic cultures self-enhance on individualistic traits - people in collectivist cultures self-enhance in collectivistic traits

dynamic self-concept

multiple selves are evidence of dynamic nature of self-concept -- representations about the self-change in response to the environment -- the self is created moment-to-moment -- highlights that the self-concept is made up of many different pieces of self-knowledge We all have several pieces of knowledge about ourselves --> rather than having the totality of ourselves coming to mind when asked about who we are, we only think of a small subset ​ --> spotlight being shined on one part of the self-concept rather than all of it (aka the working self-concept)​ ​

spreading activation

part of associative networks when one piece of knowledge is activated, other concepts that are linked with it are also activated --- concepts that are strongly linked will be activated more quickly - example of dog: when prof sees dog, she automatically thinks of 'Rufus' and 'animal'

we rate ourselves better than objectively warranted

people consistently over-estimate their abilities in various domains

unrealistic optimism bias

people tend to think that they are less likely than others to experience negative events and more likely to experience positive events TEST: since it's difficult to establish whether an individual is being overly optimistic, it's easier to test by asking people to compare self to others (since statistically speaking, not everyone can have a bright future) RESULTS: found that compared to others, people believe they are less likely to get into an accident, be a victim of a crime, experience severe illness, experience depression... AND people are more likely to believe (compared to others) that they'll like their first jobs, have a gifted child, live past 80... ANOTHER STUDY found that smokers understimate their risk of lung cancer compared to non-smokers, but also compared to the average smoker CAN THIS BE REDUCED? - another study found that thinking about the risks of developing a drinking problem does NOT decrease optimism bias

overly positive self-evaluations

people use more positive traits to describe themselves than negative traits we're more likely to forget negative feedback we remember successes more easily we engage in downward social comparison self-serving attributional bias we see our talents as unique and our weaknesses as common

self-complexity

people's self concepts differ in: 1. # of self-aspects 2. degree to which these self-aspects are distinct from each other High self-complexity: many self-aspects that are relatively distinct from each other​ Low self-complexity: few self-aspects that have a high degree of overlap with each other​

person argument

personality intuitively exists personality is stable across time persnality predicts behavior in general pretty well, but not as accurate for behavior at any one given time Correlation between well-established situational variables and behaviour is 0.3-0.4​ AND personality scores tend to be stable over time

person-situation debate

personality psychology: behaviour is determined by personality social psychology: behaviour is determined by social situation

Acculturation

process of learning and incorporating the values, beliefs, language, customs, and mannerisms of the new country (mainstream culture) that immigrants and their families are living in eg: learning french when moving too quebec

the self as an associative network

self concept is organized in an associative network spreading activation: activation of one piece of self-knowledge also activates strongly linked pieces of self-knowledge

Arab Culture and Assertive Interdependence

self-assertion as a way to sustain and protect ingroup identity and welfare Historical context: one important influence of arab culture comes from nomadic tribal groups ​ ---- desert and low on resources ​ 1) resources are incredibly valuable since they're scarce ​ 2) Groups want to attack each other and fight for the resources = warfare ​ ​ Idea: if you are as a group assertive and able to show how powerful and dominant = helpful to the group

multicultural identity

sense of belonging to 2 or more cultural groups

self-perception theory

some aspects of our self-concept are formed by making inferences about ourselves while observing our own behavior By observing , we come to a conclusion about what we must be like ​ ----eg: someone always talking with friends, having conversations with strangers, always wanting people over... may come to a conclusion that they are extroverted

mixed evidence of stress buffering

studies have found mixed evidence. could be due to: 1. Differences in well-being measure (dependent variable)​ --- Positive effect of self-complexity on mood and emotional stability but more mixed results when measuring self-esteem or depression​ 2. One part of definition of self-complexity is more important than the other (independent variable)​ --- # of self-aspects Positive effect on well-being​ Degree of distinction between self-aspects No effect on well-being​ 3. integration of self-aspects also matter - Having high self-complexity (many self-aspects) may only be helpful if self- aspects are well-integrated into a clear and coherent sense of self​ - If someone has many self-aspects BUT has unclear, incoherent sense of self (doesn't know how to integrate these different self-aspects), then high self- complexity may lead to confusion about self​

generational emotional acculturation

study compared emotional fit between Turks and Belgians: - Turks - 1st gen Turkish immigrants in Belgium - 2nd gen Turkish immigrants in Belgium - Belgians assessed emotional fit through self-reports results: more contact a generation has with belgian culture, the more emotional acculturation --> found that 2nd gen turkish immigrants were indistinguishable from belgians

is self-enhancement individualistic

study found that Western samples report higher self-esteem than Japanese samples​ AND the more exposure people have to North American culture (acculturation), the higher their self-esteem

individual emotional acculturation

study of 915 immigrant women from eastern europe and the caribbean living in USA were compared to USA-born non-immigrant women result: the longer amount of time they had spent in USA, the more they fit mainstream american emotional norms (ie. more expressivity and less inhibition of emotion)

study on cultural frame switching in emotion

study: examined 2nd gen turkish immigrants' emotional experience in belgium results: -work/school: emotions more consistent with characteristic belgian pattern - home: emotions fit characteristic belgian and turkish patterns equally well --> multicultural individuals flexibly shift behavior to fit culture that's more salient in a situation

do multicultural individuals engage in cultural frame-switching in their self-descriptions? (self-concept)

study: recruited european-canadian and chinese born students at Western University - wrote open-ended self-description that was coded for references to collective self-statement - given questionnaire to assess chinese cultural views manipulation: - study done in chinese OR english for chinese students (priming effect = language of questionnaire --> chinese questionnaire should make chinese context more salient) FOUND THAT: chinese participants' self-descriptions are more characteristically Chinese when answering in Chinese --> changing the language that someone communicates in is enough to prime the context a person is thinking in

Situation argument

the correlation of a person's personality and specific behavior is tested to be at 0.3 --> means that only about 15% of behavior can be predicted by personality Led to social psychologists to question whether there is personality at all

illusions of personal control

the idea that we have control over our lives is central to most theories of self-esteem and well-being BUT, control beliefs tend to be greater than what's justified (ie. illusory): people believe they have more control over the outcome of dice if they're allowed to throw them than if someone else throws them Study found that neurons begin firing before someone makes a decision to move --> makes people able to predict a person's deicison to move with 80% accuracy before they were aware of deciding to move

lecture 3.b

the organization of the self-concept

cultural frame switching

the process by which multicultural individuals switch between different culturally appropriate behaviors depending on the context

moderation

the relationship between the independent and dependent variable is affect by a moderator A moderator influences the strength or direction of a relationship between variables​ It shows you for whom, when, or under what circumstances a relationship exists​ Interaction effect is also called moderation​ Example: Does the situation moderate the effect of extroversion on talkativeness?​

working self-concept

the subset of self-knowledge that is accessible at any one moment

bystander effect (diffusion of responsibility)

the tendency for any given bystander to be less likely to give aid if other bystanders are present Murder of Kitty Genevese

bias blind spot

the tendency to think that other people are more susceptible to attributional biases in their thinking than we are study found that when individuals were informed of illusions and biases, they still thought they were less prone to them....

subsistence theory

the way people in a culture historically made a living influences the culture farming culture = more interdependent - many people work in 1 field - people have to share the harvest - traditionally eastern cultures herding and fishing culture = more independent - food is more consistent so have to negotiate less - can move if conflict arises - traditionally western cultures

social psychology

they believe that to understand a person's behavior, one must look at the situation -- social situations override individual differences and elicit certain behaviors -- social situations predict behavior regardless of a person's personality eg: Asch's conformity study eg: Bystander effect eg: Stanford Prison Experiment

lecture 3.a

understanding interaction effects CHECK POWERPOINT

SCC and self-complexity

unrelated A person could be high in self-complexity but low in SCC​ -- Many different self-aspects but lacking in clarity, consistency, and coherence between these different self-aspects​ A person could be low in self-complexity but high in SCC​ --- Few self-aspects but high degree of clarity, consistency and coherence between these self-aspects​

self-serving attributional bias

we claim credit for successes but blame failures on the situation

social comparison

we compare ourselves with others to form conclusions about our relative standing on attributes, abilities, opinions, etc.

social identity theory

we draw part of our identity from the social groups we belong to

cultural differences in emotion

western cultures are more emotional expressive while east asian cultures are more emotionally restrained Western: suppressing emotions is distressing and can lead to negative mental and physical health outcomes (since personal expression is valued) East asian: suppressing emotions may not lead to negative mental and physical health outcomes (since emotional restraint is valued) - STUDY found that levels of depression for chinese students is the same regardless of whether they suppress emotions or not

cultural differences in emotion (cont.)

western cultures: - value maximizing positive experiences and minimizing negative ones - emphasis on socially disengaging emotions: --- emotions that focus on self and distinctiveness (pride, frustration, self-esteem...) east asian: - value a balance of positive and negative emotional states - emphasis on socially engaging emotions --- emotions related to fitting in and connecting with others (wanting to feel close, respect, guilt, shame...)