Self-Enhancement and Self-Affirmation

When self-worth is threatened there are three ways to respond:

1. accepting failure or threatening info 2. devaluing the threatt (defensive bias) 3. affirming alternative self-resources

Mildly positive self-relevant distortions enable individuals to:

1. to develop and optimistic outlook (optimism) 2. to regain mastery of an event (control) 3. to restore their self-esteem in response to stressful events (self-esteem)

Two characteristics of Self-Enhancements that prevents having falsely positive self-perceptions may promote errors and inaccuracies in the selection of goals and courses of actions

1. while people tend to inflate their personal qualities, they are more accurate about their personal qualities 2. self-enhancement is situationally responsive and more evident at the general level than at the specific level

Presence of positive illusions are indicative of

a healthy person, the ability to care about others, openness to new ideas and people and capacity for creative and productive work and ability to cope with stress events. allows people to behave positively and get through times of stress

Studies revealed that optimism, control and self-esteem were positively related to both

college students and patients with coronary heart disease

People often make decisions and evaluate info in ways that favor

interests, repuations and esteem of their groups

No need or less of a need for self-affirmation when

living in a collectivist society where the group is valued over individuals. more of a need to group-enhance and higher modesty

Theory of Cognitive Adaptation

most people hold positively biased ideas about the future, think they have a smaller chance to get sick and think they are less vulnerable to threatening situations and others

People develop spontaneous self-enhancing perceptions based on an illusion that lead to better

psychological adjustment

self-enhancing beliefs are important for

restoring a positive sense of self and energizing psychological resources for coping

Biologically Protective Effects of self-enhancemnt

self enhancements serves a biologically protective function. those with positive outlooks on illnesses or diseases live longer

Reduce stress and illness by affirming the self

self-affirmation associated w/ poisitve physiological and health outcomes in addition to better psychological outcomes

Taylor and Brown's Theory of Positive Illusions

suggest that self-enhancements may be adaptive for mental health and general well-being

Unexpected setbacks can

temporarily bring purposeful activity to a halt

Self-enhancement

the process of seeking out and interpreting situations so as to attain a positive view of oneself

Self-affirmation theory

theory predicting that people will often cope with specific threats to their self-esteem by reminding themselves of other unrelated but cherished aspects of their self-concept

Threatening events can

undermine motivation

Defensive bias

when people seek to minimize the threat at the expense of learning from failure