Chapter 2 - Active Recall

Question 1

Identify the true statement about impact bias.

Answer 1

• Impact bias is when we overestimate the enduring impact of emotion-causing events.
• People are prone to impact bias after negative events.

Question 2

What is the spotlight effect? Provide an example

Answer 2

• The belief that others are paying more attention to one’s appearance and behavior than they actually are
  
  • Ex. Chloe dyes her hair blue and goes to school. She assumes that the students will stare at her and comment on her hair color. However, only a few of her friends really notice her dyed hair.

Question 3

How is the spotlight effect related to the illusion of transparency?

Answer 3

• The spotlight effect and the related illusion of transparency are two examples of the interplay between one’s sense of self and one’s social world.

Question 4

What is self-efficacy, and how is it different from self-esteem?

Answer 4

• Self-efficacy is a person’s sense of competence and effectiveness
  
  • A strong sense of self-efficacy leads people to stay calm and seek solutions.
  • Children and adults with strong feelings of self-efficacy are more persistent than those with low self-efficacy.
• Self-esteem is the person’s overall self-evaluation or sense of self-worth

Question 5

Explain the false consensus effect and the false uniqueness effect with examples.

Answer 5

• The false uniqueness effect is the tendency to underestimate the commonality of one’s abilities.
• The false consensus effect is the tendency to overestimate the commonality of one’s opinions and one’s undesirable or unsuccessful behaviors

Question 6

What is self-handicapping? Why do people engage in it?

Answer 6

Ex. 1

John is nervous about his tennis match, but he still stays out late instead of getting a good night’s sleep the night before the match. If he loses, he believes he could say that his lack of sleep caused his poor performance.

Ex. 2

Jack is very nervous about meeting his future in-laws for the first time. On the day they arrive at his home to meet him, he greets them in ripped sweatpants and a stained T-shirt. Later, his fiancé tells him that her parents were unimpressed with him.

Ex. 3

Shenaz has her exams coming up the following day. Fearing failure and worrying too much about her self-image among her friends, she decides to binge eat and drink the night before the exam. She knows that she always falls sick when she overeats and consumes excessive alcohol, but she believes that she could use her sickness as a valid excuse if she fails her exam.

Question 7

Describe how self-presentation is linked with self-esteem and self-monitoring.

Answer 7

• Self-monitoring is adjusting one’s performance to create the desired impression.
• Self-presentation is trying to create a positive image of yourself to others

Ex. 1 of self-presentation

Kadri wants to impress her teacher by behaving well at her college monthly convention. She tries to create a positive image of herself among her friends and teachers.

Ex. 2 of self-presentation

Laura, a researcher, studies Atharv’s desire to present a favorable image of himself both to his friends and to himself.

Question 8

Explain the self-serving bias and its effects.

Answer 8

• The tendency to perceive oneself favorably
• It causes unrealistic optimism and self-serving attributions
• In the context of self-serving attributions, we attribute positive outcomes to ourselves and negative outcomes to others.
• However it can be adaptive as it allows us to savor the good things that happen in our lives.

Question 9

People with low self-eestem prefer

Answer 9

responses that validate their negative experiences.