PSYC 215 - Chapter 3

Those who had worked with neutral words left an average of $1.84; those primed with God-related words left more than twice that amount, an average of $4.44 Reasoning that thoughts of an all-knowing God should reduce people's sense of anonymity, and increase their sense of account- ability, other researchers have found that reminders of God increase ___ to temptation— Achieving these goals— which enables us to reduce the self-discrepancies that haunt us—means that we must constantly engage in ___—the processes by which we seek to control or alter our thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and urges in order to live an acceptable social life. Conflicts between our desires and the need for self-control are ____.

resistance self-regulation constant

Vazire pro- posed a ____ in which she predicts that we know ourselves better than others do when it comes to traits that are "____" and hard to observe (such as how opti- mistic, anxious, or easily upset a person is) and that there is no self-other difference when it comes to traits that are "external" and easy to observe (such as how quiet, sociable, or messy a person is). She also predicts that others may actually know us better than we know ourselves when it comes to observ- able traits that can be so touchy for ____ that we have motivated "blind spots" (such Psychology, 98, 281-300. as how smart, creative, or rude a person is). Three types of traits were studied: 0.2 (1) high in observability (talkativeness, dominance, and leadership), (2) low in observability and not evaluative (self-esteem and anxiety), and (3) low in observability and highly evaluative (intelligent and creative). the facial feedback hypothesis states that changes in facial expression can trigger corresponding changes in the sub- jective experience of ___. As Laird predicted, participants rated what they saw facial feedback hypothesis when they were smiling than when they were frowning. this effect is ____, those who frowned at the sun reported higher levels of anger than all others It's important to note, however, that the face is not ___ to the subjective experience of emotion. When neuropsychologists recently tested a young woman who suffered from bilateral facial paralysis, they found that despite her inability to outwardly show emotion, she reported feeling various ____ in response to positive and negative visual images

Self-Other Knowledge Asymmetry (SOKA) model internal self-esteem pur- poses emotion universal necessary emotions

each of us may value different attributes and pursue this need in different ways. ____, proposed by Mark Leary and Roy Baumeister (2000), maintains that people are inherently social animals and that the desire for self-esteem is driven by a more primitive need to connect with others and gain their approval. In this way, self-esteem serves as a rough ___ of how we're doing in the eyes of others. Results showed that increased activity in rejection-related brain regions was associated with ____ Jeff Greenberg, Sheldon Solomon, and Thomas Pyszczynski (1997) proposed ____ to help explain our relentless need for self-esteem. we humans are biologically programmed for ____. Yet we are conscious of—and terrified by— the inevitability of our own ___. To cope with this paralyzing, deeply rooted fear, we construct and accept ____ In a series of experiments, these investigators found that people react to graphic scenes of death or to the thought of their own death with intense _____. When peo- ple are given positive feedback on a test, however, which boosts their self-esteem, that reaction is ____. Other research has since confirmed this type of result People with ___ self-images tend to be happy, healthy, productive, and successful. In contrast, people with ___ self-images tend to be more depressed, pessimistic about the future, and prone to failure. Roy Baumeister and others (2003) conclude that although high self- esteem leads people to feel good, take on new challenges, and persist in the face of failure, the correlational evidence ___ clearly support the strong conclu- sion that boosting self-esteem causes people to perform well in school or at work, to be socially popular, or to behave in ways that foster physical health. Jennifer Crocker and Lora Park (2004) argue that the process of pursuing self-esteem itself can be ___.

Socio- meter Theory indicator lowered self-esteem Terror Management Theory life and self-preservation death cultural worldviews defensiveness and anxiety muted positive negative does not costly

In The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, neurologist Oliver Sacks (1985) described such a person—a patient named ____. According to Sacks, Thompson suffered from an organic brain disorder that im- pairs a person's memory of recent events. Unable to recall anything for more than a few seconds, Thompson was always disoriented and lacked a sense of inner continuity. First, the capacity for ____ is necessary for people to feel as if they understand their own motives and emotions and the causes of their behavior . Second, the self is heavily influenced by ___ If so, then you have experienced the "____"—the tendency of people to pick a personally relevant stimulus, like a name, out of a complex and noisy environment . Even infants who are too young to walk or talk exhibit the ten- dency to respond to their own ___ The term ____ refers to the sum total of beliefs that people have about themselves. Ac- cording to Hazel Markus (1977), the self-concept is made up of cognitive mole- cules she called ____: beliefs about oneself that guide the processing of self-relevant information. for whom body image is a conspicuous aspect of the self-concept, are considered ___ with respect to weight. In contrast, those who do not regard their own weight as extreme or as an important part of their lives are ___ on that attribute As we will see shortly, people who identify with two cultures may have a "___" about who they are and hold different self-schemas that fit within each culture.

William Thompson self-reflection social factors. cocktail party effect name self-concept self-schemas schematic aschematic double consciousness

When people are afraid that they might fail in an important situation, they use illness, shyness, anxiety, pain, trauma, and other complaints as excuses for the possibility of failure (Snyder & Higgins, 1988). The reason people self-handicap is simple: By admitting to a limited physical or mental weakness, they can shield themselves from what could be the most shattering implication of failure—a lack of ___. The phenomenon itself is found in a number of cultures— According to Joseph Ferrari (1998), one "benefit" of procrastinating is that it helps to provide an ___ for possible failure. ____ refers to actions people take to handicap their own performance in order to build an excuse for anticipated failure. In contrast, most males (but not females) who feared the outcome of the second test chose the Pandocrin. A follow-up study showed that although self-handicapping occurs when the experimenter witnesses the participants' drug choice, it is reduced when the experimenter is not ___ while that choice is being made some men self-handicap by taking ___ (Higgins & Harris, 1988) or neglecting to ___ (Hirt et al., 1991), whereas women tend to report stress and physical symptoms (Smith et al., 1983). Another tactic is to set one's goals too ___, as perfectionists like to do, which sets up failure that is not interpreted to reflect a lack of ability (Hewitt et al., 2003). Yet another paradoxical tactic used to reduce performance pressure is for people to play down their own ability, lower expectations, and publicly predict that they will fail—a self-presentation strategy called ____ Dianne Tice (1991) found that people who are low in self-esteem use self-handicapping to set up a defensive, face-saving excuse in case they ___, whereas those who are high in self-esteem use it as an opportunity to claim extra credit if they ___. Indeed, re- search shows that self-handicapping is ____ when used in school and ultimately limits students' academic achievement and potential Accord- ing to Robert Cialdini and his colleagues (1976), people often bask in reflected glory (___) by showing off their connections to successful others. In fact, the larger the margin of victory was, the more school shirts they counted.

ability excuse self-handicapping present drugs practice high sandbagging fail succeed maladaptive BIRg

Yet when they were not fearful and expected only mild shocks or when the "others" were not taking part in the same experiment, participants preferred to be ___. the researchers proposed that two factors are necessary to feel a specific emotion. First, the person must experi- ence the symptoms of ____—such as a racing heart, perspira- tion, rapid breathing, and tightening of the stomach. Second, the person must make a ___ that explains the source of the arousal. two-factor theory of emotion, Schachter and Singer (1962) injected male volunteers with epinephrine, a drug that heightens physi- ological arousal. Drug-uninformed participants reported feeling relatively happy or angry depending on the confederate's ___. When people are unclear about their own emotional states, they sometimes interpret how they feel by ___ oth- ers For other people to influence your emotion your level of physiological arousal cannot be too intense or else it will be experienced as ___, regardless of the situation (Maslach, 1979; Zimbardo et al., 1993). Also, research shows that other people must be present as a possible ___ for arousal before its onset. Clearly, ___ shape the self-concept. When people are prompted to recall their own experiences, they typically report more events from the ___ past than from the distant past. The first is that older adults tend to retrieve a large number of personal memories from their adolescence and early adult years—a "___" found across many cultures that may occur because these are busy and formative years in one's life (Conway et al., 2005; Fitzgerald, 1988; Jansari & Parkin, 1996). A second exception is that people tend to remember transitional "firsts." Roger Brown and James Kulik (1977) coined the term ____ to describe these enduring, detailed, high-resolution recollections and speculated that humans are biologically equipped for survival purposes to "print" dramatic events in memory. These flashbulb memories are not necessarily ____ or even con- sistent over time.

alone physiological arousal cognitive interpretation performance ' watching aversive explanation memories recent reminiscence bump flashbulb memories accurate

By linking the present to the past and providing us with a sense of inner continuity over time, ____ is a vital part of—and can be shaped by—our life story and sense of identity. One complicating factor is that people tend to distort the past in ways that in- flate their own sense of ____. In one study, Harry Bahrick and others (1996) had college students try to recall all of their high school grades and then checked their reports against the actual transcripts. But most of the errors in memory were grade ____— In a second study, Burcu Demiray and Steve Janssen (2015) asked hundreds of adults, 18 to 80 years old, to report the seven most impor- tant events from their lives and to rate these memories for how good, important, emotional, vivid, and close they were. The results showed that respondents felt psychologically "closer" to memories that were ____ Lisa Libby and Richard Eibach (2002) asked college students to write about one aspect of themselves that had changed a lot and another that had not changed since high school. Ana- lyzing the words used to describe these recollections, these researchers found that participants used more third-person pronouns to describe past actions that no longer fit their ____—and they rated them- selves as more detached from these actions. Finally, it is interesting to note that just as the contents of our auto- biographical memories are intertwined with our sense of who we are, the process of remembering can prove to be a ____ ___—defined as a sentimen- tal longing for the past—is common and universal. Research shows that people often become nostalgic during ___ life events such as a breakup or di- vorce, a long distance move, feelings of loneliness, or serious illness (Wildschut et al., 2006). Research also shows that the effect of making people nostalgic is not merely inform or reinforce the self-concept but to boost their ____ and positive mood states,

autobiographical memory importance and achievement inflations positive rather than negative. current selves positive emotional expe- rience. Nostalgia distressing self-esteem

It seems that culturally ingrained orienta- tions to ___ leave a mark on us, leading us to form preferences for things that "fit in" or "stand out." In a follow-up to that study, Trafimow and others (1997) tested students from Hong Kong, all of whom spoke English as a second language. Students who took the test in English focused more on ___, whereas those who took the test in Chinese focused more on ___. Kaiping Peng and Richard Nisbett (1999) note that people in East Asian cultures think in ___ terms about contradictory characteristics—accepting, for example, that apparent opposites (such as black and white, friend and enemy, and strong and weak) can coexist within a single person either at the same time or as a result of changes over time. Grounded in Eastern traditions, ___ is a system of thought characterized by the acceptance of such contradictions through compromise, " This thought style contrasts sharply with the American and European perspective, grounded in Western logic, by which people differentiate seeming ___ on the assumption that if one is right, the other must be wrong. Overall, they found that compared to European Americans who portray their "true selves" as stable across the board, Asian Americans ____ their self-concepts more to suit different relationship situations—though they are ___ within these situa- tions. Other research too has shown that East Asians are more willing than Americans to see and accept ___ aspects of themselves (Spencer-Rodgers et al., 2009)— as seen in their willingness to accept both positive and negative aspects of themselves at the same time According to Renee Holloway and others (2009), Latino cultures prize the con- cept of ___, which emphasizes expressive displays of personable charm, graciousness, and hospitality. they found that the Latino participants on average were more likely to describe themselves using ____ terms such as likable, friendly, sym- pathetic, amiable, and gracious. Similarly, Nairán Ramírez-Esparza and colleagues (2012) found that Mexican participants were more likely to describe their own personality using words about ___ (e.g., parents, house, love, friends) and ____ (e.g., affectionate, honest, noble, tolerant Patricia Greenfield (2013) looked at the frequency of word usage from the year 1800 until 2000. She found that accompanying a shift from a more rural to urban population, there was also a shift in ____ Jean Twenge and her colleagues (2012) found that compared to ___, subsequent generations were more focused on money, fame, and self-image and less concerned with affiliation, community, and civic engagement

conformity and independence personal traits group affilia- tions dialectical dialecticism opposites vary consistent contradic- tory simpatico simpatico-related relationships empathy cultural values boomers

Although impressed with evidence for implicit egotism in the laboratory, Simonsohn re-analyzed the real-life data and concluded that too often the links resulted from a statistical ___. It's clear that people prefer the letters of their own name and the number of their own birthday. What is less clear is whether these preferences influence the highest ___ decisions we make with regard to a marriage partner, or career, or a place to live. First, the students ___their actual scores by an average of 17 points. Second, a majority of students whose SAT scores were low described their scores as inaccurate and the test in general as ___. But as memories fade, which occurs with the passage of time, the potential for self- enhancing recollections of test scores is ___ Across a range of cultures, people tend to take credit for success and distance themselves from ___ (Mezulis et al., 2004; Schlenker et al., 1990)—all while seeing themselves as objective, not biased ( A number of later studies have shown that in matters of sports, politics, health and illness, romantic relationships, economics, and social issues, people exhibit an ____— essentially, an instance of wishful thinking—about their own future, judging desir- able events as more likely to occur than undesirable events ( Perhaps one reason that people are eternally optimistic is that they harbor ___, overestimating the extent to which they can influence personal outcomes that are not, in fact, within their power to control Ellen Langer (1975) found that college students bet more money in a chance game of high- card when their opponent seemed nervous rather than confident and were more reluctant to sell a lottery ticket if they had chosen the number themselves than if it was assigned to them. Emily Pronin and others (2006) then tested the related hypothesis that imagining an event before it occurs can lead people to think they had ___ it.

fluke stakes overesti- mated invalid increased failure optimistic bias il- lusions of control influenced

In this experiment, however, the pendulum was more likely to swing horizontally when this direction was specifically forbidden. Among those who tried to prevent horizontal movement but could not con- centrate fully on the task, the pendulum swayed freely back and forth in the ___ direction Applying this logic to keeping secrets, other researchers have found that instructing word-game players to conceal hid- den clues from a fellow player ____ their tendency to leak that information At least in Western cultures, Consistently, and across a broad range of life domains, people see positive traits as more ____ than negative traits, rate themselves more highly than they do others, rate themselves more highly than they are rated by others, exaggerate their control over life events, and predict that they have a bright future This pattern is known as the ___ effect. He found that the effect is greater for traits that were rated as high in ___ (such as honest, kind, responsible, and intelligent) than for traits of lesser importance (such as conscien- tious, agreeable, imaginative, and outgoing). But research suggests that people also exhibit ____, or implicit self-esteem—an unconscious and subtle expression of self-esteem. Particularly interesting in this regard is the finding that people evaluate the letters contained within their own names more ___ than other letters of the alphabet (Hoorens & Nuttin, 1993). This name-letter effect is also found in people's preferences for their own birthday numbers Brett Pelham and his colleagues (2002) theorized that the positive associations people form with the sight and sound of their own name may draw them toward other people, places, and entities that share this most personal aspect of "___." Even more impressive, perhaps, is that people with high self-esteem are more likely to seek out romantic partners who are ___ to themselves (Brown & Brown, 2015). In subtle but remarkable ways, it seems that we unconsciously seek out reflections of the self in other people and in our sur- roundings (

forbidden increased rather than decreased self-descriptive "better-than-average" importance implicit egotism favorably self similar

these researchers are finding that certain areas become more active when laboratory participants see a picture of themselves rather than a picture of another person (Platek et al., 2008), when they viewed self-relevant words such as their own name or street address rather than other-relevant words (Moran et al., 2009), and when they take a first-person perspective while play- ing a video game as opposed to a third-person perspective (David et al., 2006) , the self is a ____ of reference that powerfully influences our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. In a series of studies, Gordon Gallup (1977) placed different species of animals in a room with a large mirror. After several days, only ____(chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans)—but not other animals—seemed capable of self-recognition, Upon seeing the red spot, only the apes spontaneously reached for their own ___—proof that they perceived the image as their own By using a similar red dye test (without anesthetizing the infants), developmental psychologists have found that most humans begin to recognize themselves in the mirror between the ages of ___ months Recent research suggests that certain intelligent non-primates can also recognize themselves. ____ Tanya Broesch and others Based on their observations, the re- searchers speculated that the children in these non-Western countries did not lack ____. They knew it was their image in the mirror but—having been raised for ___ and trained not to ask questions—they did not dare touch or remove the mark. Sociologist Charles Horton Cooley (1902) introduced the term ___ to suggest that other people serve as a mirror in which we see ourselves. Expanding on this idea, George Herbert Mead (1934) added that we often come to know ourselves by imagining what significant others think of ___ and then incorporating these perceptions into our self-concepts.

frame great apes brows 18 and 24 dolphins elephants self-recognition compliance looking-glass self us

found that the impressions conveyed by their posted profiles correlated ___ with a combination of objective personality tests, self-reports, and reports from a sample of well-acquainted friends. According to Mark Snyder (1987), these differences are related to a personality trait he called ____: the tendency to regu- late one's own behavior to meet the demands of social situations. Individuals who are high in self-monitoring appear to have a ___ of selves from which to draw. Sensitive to strategic self-presentation concerns, they are poised, ready, and able to modify their behavior as they move from one setting to another. Like character actors always cast in the same role, they express themselves in a ___ manner from one situation to the next, exhibiting what they regard as their true and hon- est self. Unconsciously adapting to social situations, high self-monitors are likely to ____ the demeanor of others in subtle ways that facilitate smooth social interactions Consistent with the finding that high self-monitors are ___ concerned than lows about what other people think, research conducted in work settings shows that high self-monitors receive higher performance ratings and more promotions and that they are more likely to emerge as ___ ( A survey of 18- to 73-year-olds revealed that self-monitoring scores tend to ___ with age, presumably because people become more settled and secure about who they are as they get older Con- cerning the relative value of these two orientations, then, it is safe to conclude that neither high nor low self-monitoring is necessarily _____—unless carried to the extreme. Indeed, when people older than 85 years were asked to reflect on their lives, almost all said that despite having changed in certain ways, they had remained essentially the ___ person William James (1890) remarked that the self is not simple but ___.

highly self-monitoring repertoire consistent mimic more leaders drop undesirable same multifaceted

Consistently, they and others have found that people overestimate the strength and duration of their emotional reactions, a phenom- enon they call the ___ First, when it comes to negative life events—such as an injury, illness, or big fi- nancial loss—people do not fully appreciate the extent to which our psychological ___ help us to cushion the blow. The result is a self-other difference by which we tend to predict that others will suffer even ___ than we will To become more accurate in our predictions, then, we need to force ourselves to think more ___, about all the events that impact us. Regardless of what we can learn from introspection, Daryl Bem (1972) proposed that people can learn about themselves the same way outside observers do—by watching their own ___. Bem's self-perception theory In other words, people learn about themselves through self-perception only when the situation alone seems ___ to have caused their behavior. When people are gently coaxed into saying or doing something and when they are not otherwise certain about how they feel, they often come to view themselves in ways that are ____ with their public statements and behaviors In a series of studies, Noah Goldstein and Robert Cialdini (2007) demonstrated this phenomenon, which they call ____

impact bias coping mechanisms longer broadly behavior insufficient consistent vicarious self-perception.

people with more income, education, and status tend to have many opportunities to exhibit ___ by expressing their desires, their autonomy, and the pursuit of personal goals. . Navigating a low-income world means having to rely more on others and fitting-in, fostering "___" working-class men were more likely than middle-class men to see themselves in terms of their ___ to others , people classified as low in social class were less likely to agree with statements of ___ and with statements indicating ___ . Rather, we are judgmental, motivated, emotional, and highly protective of our ____—an evaluative component of the self. The term ____ thus refers to our positive and negative evalu- ations of ourselves . Rather, it is a state of mind that ____ up and down in response to success, failure, social relations, and other life experiences With the self-concept made up of many self-schemas, people typically view parts of the self ___ . In fact, just as individuals differ ac- cording to how high or low their self-esteem is, they also differ in the extent to which their self-esteem is ___. As a general rule, self-esteem stays roughly the ___ from childhood through old age—people who are high or low in self-esteem remain in that relative position throughout life . Longitudi- nal studies that track individuals over time, and cross-sectional studies that compare at one point in time people from different age groups, show that self-esteem ___ from childhood to adolescence, gradually -___ during the transition to adult- hood, continues to ___ as adults get older, and ___ in old age shows that average levels dropped sharply dur- ing the very ___ semester, rebounded by the end of the first year, and then gradually increased from that point on

individualism hard interdependence relationships entitlement narcissism self-esteem self-esteem fluctuates differently stable or unstable same declines increases rise declines first

the most fiercely individualistic people were from the United States, Australia, Great Britain, Canada, and the Netherlands—in that order. The most col- lectivist people were from Venezuela, Colombia, Pakistan, Peru, Taiwan, and China. Within the United States, they found that African Americans were the most ___ subgroup and that Asian Americans and Latino Americans were the most ___. Comparing nations, they found that collectivist orien- tations varied within Asia, as the ___ were more collectivistic than Japanese and Korean respondents. They note that national boundaries are not the only source of cultural differences, that each of us combines a special mix of ___ to make us who we are. According to Markus and Conner, culture is made up of four I's—____ that shape how individuals think, feel, and act. In turn, how individuals act influences their ideas, institutions, and so- cial interactions. This ____ cycle most North Ameri- cans and Europeans have an ____ view of the self. In this view, the self is an entity that is distinct, autonomous, self-contained, and en- dowed with unique dispositions. Yet in much of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, people hold an ____ view of the self. David Trafimow and others (1991) had North American and Chinese college students complete 20 sentences beginning with "I am. . . ." Americans were more likely to fill in the blank with trait descrip- tions ("I am shy"), whereas the Chinese were more likely to identify themselves by ___ affiliations ("I am a college student"). Consistent with this finding, a sec- ond study has shown that when Chinese participants—but not Americans—think about themselves areas of the brain are activated that are also activated when they think about their ___ (Zhu et al., 2007b). A third study has shown that when it comes to making career decisions, Chinese students with interdependent selves are more likely to seek ___ from others and compromise than are American students with independent selves The first is that people in individualistic cultures strive for ____, whereas those living in collectivist cultures derive more satisfaction from the ____ of a valued group. Thus, whereas North Americans tend to ____ their own contributions to a team effort, seize credit for success, and blame others for failure, people from collectivist cultures tend to____ their own role and present themselves in more modest, self-effacing terms in relation to other members of the group (Heine et al., 2000). A second consequence of these differing conceptions of the self is that American college students see themselves as less ___ to other people than do Asian students. This difference reinforces the idea that individuals with independent self-conceptions believe they are ____.

individualistic collectivistic Chinese biology and cultures ideas, institutions, and social interactions dynamic culture independent interdependent group mothers advice personal achievement status overestimate un- derestimate similar unique

The first is ___, a term used to describe acts that are motivated by the desire to "get along" with others and be liked. The other is ____, a term used to describe acts that are motivated by a desire to "get ahead" and gain respect for one's competence As the term brown-nosing graphically suggests, ingratiation tactics need to be ___ or else they will backfire (Jones, 1964). People also do not like those who relentlessly trumpet and brag about their own ___ (Godfrey et al., 1986) or who exhibit a "slimy" pattern of being friendly to superiors but not to subordinates ( Mark Leary and others (1994) reviewed evidence suggesting that the need to project a favorable public image can lure us into ___ patterns of behavior. F , ___: the de- sire to have others perceive us as we truly perceive ourselves. According to William Swann (1987), people are highly motivated in their social encounters to confirm or verify their existing ___ in the eyes of others. Those who perceived themselves as dominant but were labeled submissive later behaved ___ assertively than usual; those who viewed themselves as submissive but were labeled dominant subse- quently became even more docile ( Although participants with a positive self-concept chose part- ners who viewed them in a positive light, a majority of those with a negative self-concept preferred part- ners who ___ their admitted shortcomings. In a later study, 64% of participants with low self-esteem (compared with only 25% with high self-esteem) sought clinical feedback about their ___ rather than strengths when given a choice (Giesler et al., 1996). Research also suggests that people prefer to interact with others who verify their ___, a key aspect of the collective self (Chen et al., 2009). Indeed, the desire for self-verification appears to be ___, observed in both individual- ist and collectivist cultures ( As predicted, people who had a positive self-concept expressed more commitment to partners who appraised them ___, whereas those with a negative self-concept felt more committed to partners who appraised them ____ We all want to make a good impression, but we also want others in our lives to have an ___ impression

ingratiation self-promotion subtle achievements unsafe self-verification self-concept more confirmed weaknesses group mem- berships universal favorably un- favorably accurate

Challenging the conclusion that self-esteem is not worth striving for, William Swann and others (2007) note that although a person's overall, or global, sense of self-worth may not be predictive of positive___, people with particu- lar domains of self-esteem benefit in more circumscribed ways. In addition to facilitating success in various life domains, research suggests that self-esteem is associated with a ___ for physical and men- tal health problems, substance abuse, and antisocial behavior Among adolescents and adults, males ___ females on various general measures of self-esteem. Contrary to popular belief, however, the difference was small, particularly among ___ adults. Brittany Gentile and her colleagues (2009) found, for example, that men have ___ self-esteem with regard to their physical appearance and athletic abilities, while women have ___ self-esteem when it comes to matters of ethics and personal morality. Bernadette Gray-Little and Adam Hafdahl (2000) reported that black American children, adolescents, and adults consistently score ___—not lower—than their white counterparts on measures of self-esteem. Jean Twenge and Jennifer Crocker (2002) con- firmed the African American advantage in self-esteem relative to whites but found that Hispanic, Asian, and Native American minorities have ___ self- esteem scores. some researchers have suggested that perhaps African Americans—more than other minorities—are able to preserve their self- esteem in the face of ___ by attributing negative outcomes to the forces of discrimination and using this adversity to build a sense of group pride.

life outcomes reduced risk outscored older higher higher higher lower adversity

According to E. Tory Higgins (1989), our self-esteem is defined by the ____ between how we see ourselves and how we want to see ourselves. your actual self, your ought self, and your ideal self. If there's a discrepancy between your actual and ought selves, you will feel guilty, ashamed, and resentful. You might even suffer from excessive fears and ____disorders. If the mismatch is between your actual and ideal selves, you'll feel disappointed, frustrated, un- fulfilled, and ___. In fact, recent research shows that people's self-discrepancies—and the associated depression and anxiety—tend to remain ___ over time, at least when retested over the course of three years Participating in a study of body images, college women with high rather than low discrepancies between their actual and ideal selves were more likely to ___ themselves The reason, according to Higgins, is that self-esteem depends on a number of factors. One is simply the amount of ___. Another factor is the ____ of the discrepancy to the self. A third factor is how much we ___ on our self-discrepancies. Out of 4,700 recorded thoughts, only 8% were about the self. when participants were thinking about themselves, they reported feeling relatively ___ and wished they were doing something else Ac- cording to their ____ theory, most people are not usually self-focused, but certain situations predictably force us to turn inward and become the objects of our own attention. Even a brightly lit room can make us feel ___ and acutely "concerned about what other people think of me"

match or mismatch anxiety-related sad stable compare discrepancy im- portance focus unhappy self-awareness self-aware

As predicted, participants who were prone to self- awareness drank ___ wine after failure than after success, presumably to dodge the blow to their self-esteem. Among participants not prone to self-awareness, there was ___ difference in alcohol consumption. Alcohol can cause us to lose touch with who we are and to shed our inhibitions (Giancola et al., 2010). It can also evoke in us a state of "___." As measured by the perceived dis- crepancy between actual and ideal selves, those participants who were drinking expressed inflated views of themselves on traits they considered ___ ( Research has revealed an important distinction between ___ self-consciousness—the tendency to in- trospect about our inner thoughts and feelings—and ___ self-consciousness— the tendency to focus on our outer public image ( Thus, when people were asked to draw a capital letter E on their foreheads, 43% of those with high levels of public self-consciousness, compared with only 6% of those with low levels, oriented the E so that it was backward from their own standpoint but correct for an ___ (Hass, 1984). People who are high in pub- lic self-consciousness are also particularly ___ to the extent to which others share their opinions According to Higgins (1989), people are motivated to meet either their own ___ or the standards held for them by significant others. If you're privately self-conscious, you listen to an inner voice and try to reduce discrepancies relative to your own standards; if you're publicly self-conscious, however, you try to match your behavior to socially accepted ___. Across nations, cultures, and religions, more than 90% of the people on Earth believe in God or some other om- nipotent force. One study showed that high believers who were primed to think about God—but not low believers—became more ____, as if they were being observed by other people. A second study showed that thinking about God, as opposed to something neutral, led high believers to answer various questions in ways that were ____—

more no drunken self-inflation important private public observer sensitive standards norms self-aware socially desirable

Veronika Job and others (2010, 2015) theorized that people who hold a ___ theory of will- power (as described by the statement, "After a strenuous mental activity, you feel energized for further challenging activities") are more likely to maintain the ability to self- regulate after exertion than those who believe that self-control is limited and difficult to overcome ("After a strenuous mental activity, your energy is depleted and you must rest to get it refueled again"). In longitudinal studies that tracked college students over a semester, these researchers found that students who endorsed a nonlimited belief in willpower relative to those who endorsed a limited belief were better able to ____ during the difficult week before final exams: those who endorsed a nonlimited theory procrastinated less and ulti- mately scored ___ grades "___" in these ways seems to be a paradoxical type of failure caused by trying too hard and thinking too much. Unless trained to perform while self-focused, athletes under pressure often try their hardest not to fail, become self-conscious, and think too much—all of which disrupts the ____ flow of their performance Studying what he calls ____, Daniel Wegner (1994) has found that, at times, the harder you try to inhibit a thought, feeling, or behavior, the less likely you are to succeed. According to Wegner, every conscious effort at maintaining control is met by a concern about ___ to do so. This concern automatically triggers an "ironic operating process" as the person, trying hard not to fail, searches his or her mind for the unwanted thought. But if the person is cognitively busy, tired, distracted, hurried, or under stress, then the ironic process, because it "just happens," will prevail ___ the intentional process, which requires conscious attention and effort.

nonlimited self-regulate higher Choking fluid and natural ironic processes failing over

When someone is offered a reward for something they already like to do—whether it's listening to music, playing a game, or eating a tasty food—that behavior becomes ____, or overrewarded, which means that it can be attributed to extrinsic as well as intrinsic motives. Research has shown that when people start getting rewarded for a task they already enjoy, they sometimes ____ interest in it over time. Mark Lepper and his colleagues (1973) gave preschool children an opportunity to play with colorful felt-tipped markers—an opportunity most could not resist. Having played with the markers without the promise of tangible benefit, these chil- dren remained intrinsically motivated ( People are likely to be more creative when they are ____ in relation to the task, not compelled by outside forces. If a reward is presented in the form of verbal ___ that is perceived to be sincere or as a special "bonus" for superior performance, then it can ___ intrinsic motivation by providing positive feedback about competence—as when people win competitions, scholarships, or a pat on the back from people they respect The notion that intrinsic motivation is undermined by some types of reward but not others was observed even among ____ For intrinsically oriented people who say, "What matters most to me is enjoying what I do" and "I seldom think about salary and promo- tions," reward may be unnecessary and may even be detrimental (Amabile et al., 1994). Yet for people who are laser-focused on the achievement of certain goals— whether at school, at work, or in sports—inducements such as grades, scores, bonuses, awards, trophies, and the sheer thrill of competition, as in team sports, tend to boost____ When asked this question, people tend to describe themselves in ways that set them apart from others in their ____ Change someone's social surroundings, and you can change that person's spontaneous ____

overjustified lose intrinsically motivated praise enhance 20-month-old babies. intrinsic motivation immediate vicinity self-description.

When Shelley Taylor and Jonathon Brown (1988) first reviewed the research, they found that individuals who are depressed or low in self-esteem actually have more ____ views of themselves than do most others who are better adjusted. Based on these re- sults, Taylor and Brown reached the provocative conclusion that ____promote happiness, the desire to care for others, and the ability to engage in pro- ductive work—hallmark attributes of mental health: Drawing on evolutionary theory, William von Hippel and Robert Trivers (2011) offered a new and provocative perspective on the adaptive advantages of self-de- ception. Over the years, evolutionary psychologists have noted that ____ is a com- munication skill that animals use to curry favor, attract a mate, and influence others to share food, shelter, and other resources. By deceiving ourselves in ways that create positive illusions, we are able to display greater ____ in public than we may actually feel, making us more successful in our social relations. Roy Baumeister and Steven Scher (1988) warned that posi- tive illusions can give rise to chronic patterns of ____ behavior, In a study on success and failure feedback, Heine and others (2001) found that whereas North American college students persisted less on a task after an initial failure than after success, Japanese students persisted ___ in this situation. C. Randall Colvin and others (1995) found that people with inflated rather than realistic views of themselves were rated ___ favorably on certain dimensions by their own friends. People with inflated self-images may make a good first impression on others, but they are liked ___ and less as time wears on People who harbor positive illusions of them- selves are likely to enjoy the benefits and achievements of high ____ and social influence. But these same individuals may pay a price in other ways, as in their relations with others. To answer this question, some researchers have used less direct, subtle tests that measure implicit self-esteem—a person's unconscious tendency to positively evaluate people and objects that reflect upon ____ (Falk & Heine, 2015).

realistic positive illusions deceit confidence self-defeating more less less self-esteem themselves

, Susan Andersen and Serena Chen (2002) theorized that the self is "____"—that we draw our sense of who we are from our past and current relationships with the significant others in our lives. It is interesting that when Gallup tested his apes, those that had been raised in ___—without exposure to peers—did not recognize themselves in the mirror. In fact, it seems that we can tell when our perceptions of what others think of us are more or less ___ Self-knowledge is derived from ___, a looking inward at one's own thoughts and feelings Some forty years ago, Richard Nisbett and Timothy Wilson (1977) conducted a series of experiments in which they found that research participants often could not ac- curately explain the ____ or correlates of their own behavior. Wilson (2002) argued that it does not. In fact, he finds that introspection can sometimes lead us ___ on the road to self-knowledge. The first, as described by Wilson, is that human beings are mentally ___ processing information, which is why we so often fail to understand our own thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. David Dunning (2005) points to a second type of problem in self- assessment: that people overestimate the ___ Kathryn Bollich and others (2015) found that most people who harbor biased self-perceptions (for example, about how warm, dependable, stable, and funny they are relative to how they are rated by their own peers) accurately describe themselves as ____ when prompted. When it comes to self-insight, people do have difficulty projecting forward and predicting how they would feel in response to future emotional events—a pro- cess known as ____

relational isolation correct introspection causes astray busy posi- tives. biased affective forecasting.

Thus, research participants who are seated in front of a mirror tend to react more negatively to their ____, often slipping into a nega- tive mood state (Hass & Eisenstadt, 1990; Phillips & Silvia, 2005). Interestingly, Japanese people—whose culture already leads them to be highly concerned about their public "face"—are ___ by the added presence of a mirror The more ___ people are in general, the more likely they are to find themselves in a bad mood (Flory et al., 2000) or depressed (Pyszczynski & Greenberg, 1987). People who are self-absorbed are also more likely to suffer from alcoholism, anxi- ety, and other clinical disorders (Mor & Winquist, 2002) and have self-destructive, suicide-related thoughts when they fail to meet their own ___ Self-awareness theory suggests two basic ways of coping with such discomfort: (1) "____" by behaving in ways that help to reduce our self-discrepancies or (2) "____" by withdrawing from self-awareness. In general, research supports the prediction that when people are self-focused, they are more likely to behave in ways that are consistent with their own per- sonal values or with socially accepted ideals. Apparently, the mirror forced the children to become self-focused, leading them to behave in a way that was consistent with public standards of ____ In a second study, in England, customers at a lunch counter were trusted to pay for their coffee, tea, and milk by depositing money into an unsuper- vised "honesty box." researchers observed that people paid nearly three times more money in the presence of the ___ Self-awareness theory states that if a successful reduction of self-discrepancy seems unlikely, individuals will take a second route: ___ from self-awareness. Baumeister (1991) theorized that drug abuse, sexual masochism, spiritual ecstasy, binge eating, and suicide all serve this ____. According to Jay Hull, people often drown their sorrows in a bottle as a way to escape the ____ implications of self-awareness.

self-discrepancies unaffected self-focused standards shape up ship out desirable conduct eyes escape escapist function negative

Laird argues that facial expres- sions affect emotion through a process of ___: "If I'm smiling, I must be happy." As predicted by self- perception theory, the differences were particularly pronounced among partici- pants who saw themselves in a ___. Robert Zajonc (1993) argues that smiling causes facial muscles to increase the flow of ____ to the brain, a process that produces a pleasant state by lowering brain temperature. Conversely, frowning decreases blood flow, producing an unpleasant state by ___ As it turned out, ah and e (sounds that cause people to mimic smil- ing) lowered forehead temperature and elevated mood, whereas u and ü (sounds that cause us to mimic frowning) increased temperature and dampened mood. Twain's hypothesis—that reward for an enjoyable activity can ___ interest in that activity—seems to contradict both our intuition and the results of psychological research. Intrinsic motivation originates in factors ___ a person. In contrast, extrinsic motivation originates in factors ___ the person. People are said to be extrinsically motivated when they engage in an activity as a means to an end, for tangible ___.

self-perception mirror air-cooled blood rais- ing temperature. under- mine within outside benefit

In these descriptions, students who thought they had just failed a test were more likely than those who thought they had succeeded to ____ in their team's victory by exclaiming that "we won" and to ___ themselves from defeat by lamenting how "they lost." In another study, participants coming off a recent failure were quick to point out that they had the same birth date as some- one known to be ___—thus BIRGing by a merely coincidental association Participants were later offered a chance to take home a team badge. In the success and no-feedback groups, 68% and 50%, respec- tively, took badges; in the failure group, only 9% did (Snyder et al., 1986). For diehard sports fans—male and female alike—the tendency to bask in reflected glory is matched by an equally powerful tendency to CORF—that is, to ___ When a person's self-esteem is at stake, he or she often benefits from making ___ social comparisons with others who are less successful, less happy, or less fortunate Although Festinger never addressed the issue, Anne Wilson and Michael Ross (2000) note that in addition to making social com- parisons between ourselves and similar oth- ers, we make temporal comparisons between our ____ selves. The result was that people made more compari- sons to their own past selves than to others, and most of these temporal comparisons were ___. people use downward temporal comparisons the way they use downward social comparisons as a means of ___ When victimized by tragic life events (perhaps a crime, an accident, a disease, or the death of a loved one), people like to affiliate with others in the same ___ who have adjusted well, role models who offer hope and guidance. But they tend to compare themselves with others who are worse off, a form of downward social comparison They found that 53% of all the social comparisons made were downward, to others who were worse off; only 12% were upward, to others who were better off (the rest were "lateral" comparisons to similar or dissimilar others). I Downward social comparison is also associated with an ability to cope with the kinds of life ___ that sometimes haunt people as they get older. Among the older adults in the sample, those who tended to see oth- ers as having more severe regrets than their own felt ___ than those who saw others as less regretful.

share distance successful cut off reflected failure downward past and present favorable self-enhancement predicament regrets better

Stephanie Richman and her colleagues (2015) reported on a series of studies showing that when college stu- dents are induced to suffer through a social exclusion experience—being left out of an online three-person game—they go on to modify their self-concept descrip- tions in ways that make them more ___ to a fellow student who looms as a potential friend. ____ theory. As Festinger proposed, the answer to the "when" question appears to be that people engage in social comparison in states of ___, when more objective means of self-evaluation are not available. Two types of usage can be distinguished: ____, where peo- ple post information about themselves and communicate with others; and ___, in which people consume information from other people's Facebook pages without making direct contact research was reported in the news suggesting a phenomenon that was being called "___"—the more time people spent on Face- book, the more unhappy they were After college-age adults were randomly assigned to engage in upward—as opposed to downward—social comparisons, with others who are highly active and successful, they came to rate themselves ___ favorably (Vogel et al., 2014). A second possible reason for this negative effect is that people on Facebook, as in life more generally, tend to portray themselves in overly ___ ways—which increases the likelihood that the social comparisons we make are not personally favorable. In classic experiments on affiliation, Stanley Schachter (1959) found that when people were frightened into thinking they would receive painful electric shocks, most sought the company of others who were in the same __.

similar social comparison uncertainty active usage passive usage Facebook Depression less flat- tering predicament

Drawing on these results, Constantine Sedikides and colleagues (2003) maintained that people from individualist and collectivist cultures are similarly motivated to think highly of themselves—that the burning need for positive self-regard is ___, or "pancultural." The observed differences, they argue, stem from the fact that cultures influence how we seek to ___ that need: From this perspective, people are tactical in their self-enhancements, ex- hibiting self-praise or humility depending on what is desirable within their ___ surroundings Americans showed a stronger preference for the high self-esteem ___ They note, however, that in the effort to achieve this goal, individualists tend to use ____ tactics to stand out, confirm, and express themselves, whereas East Asians and other collectivists tend to maintain ___ in order to fit in, improve the self, and adjust to the standards set by their groups. Thomas Gilovich and others (2000) found that people are so self-conscious in public settings that they are often subject to the ____, a tendency to believe that the social spotlight shines more brightly on them than it really does. I Demonstrating that people self-consciously feel as if all eyes are upon them, the T-shirted participants ___ by 23% to 40% the number of observers who had noticed and could recall what they were wearing. Follow-up studies have similarly shown that when people commit a pub- lic social blunder, they later overestimate the ___ impact of their behavior on those who had observed them ( This insight was first put into social science terms by sociologist Erving Goffman (1959), who argued that life is like a theater and that each of us acts out certain lines, as if from a script. Most important, said Goffman, is that each of us assumes a certain face, or ___, that others politely help us maintain. ____— the process by which we try to shape what other people think of us and what we think of ourselves Strategic self-presentation consists of our efforts to shape others' impressions in specific ways in order to ___ influence, power, sympathy, or approval. Whatever the goal may be, people find it less effortful to present themselves in ways that are ___ rather than contrived In this situation, cognitively busy participants self-presented successfully when asked to convey their true personalities but not when asked to portray themselves in a way that was ___ of character.

universal fulfill cultural person self-enhancement face spotlight effect overestimated negative social identity self-presentation gain accurate out