L10 - The Self Under Threat Flashcards
how do we cope with psychological threats to the self? self-affirmation theory, self-affirmation theory vs. cognitive dissonance theory, effects of self-affirmation on: personal uncertainty, prejudice, and mortality salience)
What is threatening to the self?
(what is self-integrity?)
we all have a need for self-integrity
- self-integrity: perceiving oneself as living up to culturally defined ideas of goodness, virtue, and agency
- i.e., seeing ourselves as worthwhile and good
- consistent with self-enhancement motive
perceived failures in self-integrity are experienced as “threatening” to the self
- i.e., failing to live up to socially or personally meaningful standards
What are defensive reactions to threats to the self?
Defensive reaction: negative, hostile, or distorted reaction to anything bad about the self to protect self-integrity
- dismiss/minimize the threat
– “everyone makes mistakes sometimes”
- biased perception/judgment of information
– self-serving attributional bias
- compensatory conviction
– emphasizing certainty and conviction about unrelated attitudes, values, goals, and identities
– hardening of attitudes
– e.g., becoming more zealous about social attitudes & groups
What is the benefit and limitations of defensive reactions to threats to the self?
benefit:
- allows us to maintain positive self-views and restore self-integrity
limitations:
- defensive reactions get in the way of accepting criticism/setbacks experience and learning from it
What is the self-affirmation theory?
and what is its implication?
when the self is threatened, people are more motivated to repair it
- desire to restore self-integrity
people can cope with self-threat by explicitly affirming/bolstering a characteristic or value in ANOTHER DOMAIN that is important to them
- allows us to restore overall self-integrity, without resolving specific self-threat
implication: makes criticism/setback less threatening and allows us to accept it and learn from it
What type of self-integrity do we tend to focus on more often?
(global or specific self-integrity?)
we are primarily motivated to maintain overall global self-integrity
- specific source of self-integrity matters less
What is cognitive dissonance?
a behaviour that contradicts an important attitude or value arouses an unpleasant state of “dissonance”
people adjust/align attitude to “justify” behaviour to reduce dissonance-related negative arousal
why?
- cognitive dissonance theorists: need for psychological consistency
- Steele: need to maintain self-integrity
Describe Steele & Liu’s study on dissonance as self-affirmation (1981).
Hypothesis: affirming an important value will eliminate cognitive dissonance and the attitude changes that results
- i.e., will maintain original attitude consistent with values
recruited students that were supportive of funding for disabilities
had to write essay “opposing more state funding for disabilities facilities”
experimental manipulation: prior to essay, 1/2 student got either:
- expectation to self-affirm: “we’d like you to record exams onto audio tapes to help blind students”
- no expectation to self-affirm: no warning
complete questionnaire about attitudes
- “the governemnt should not increase funding for treatment and facilities to the chronically ill and disabled”
Hypothesis: expectation of value affirming behaviour should eliminate cognitive dissonance and result in no changes to personal attitudes
Finding:
- expectation to self-affirm reduced dissonance-induced attitude change
Explain the generality of self-affirmation effect
self-affirmation serves as a buffer against threats to our values by allowing us to restore overall self-integrity
means that we can affirm domains unrelated to threat to preserve self-integrity
- don’t need to self-affirm specific domain that’s threatened
but, need to affirm in a domain that’s relevant to us
- if we try to affirm in a domain that isn’t relevant to us, then we still experience dissonance
Compare self-affirmation with symbolic self-completion
symbolic self-completion: we compensate for threats to the self by engaging in activities that will bolster the specific self-aspect that was threatened (“complete” the threatened identity)
self-affirmation: we compensate for threats to the self by engaging in activities that will bolster our global sense of self-integrity
When do we use self-affirmation vs. self-completion?
depends on how important the threatened self-aspect is
- if important –> symbolic self-completion
– affirm specific self-aspect under threat
- if less important –> self-affirmation
– affirm another aspect, not the one under threat
What are the three examples of threats to the self covered in this course?
(can self-affirmation reduce other defensive reactions?)
- pesonal uncertainty and compensatory conviction
– self-affirmation eliminates compensatory conviction in the face of personal uncertainty, making them more tolerant of ambivalence - stereotyping/prejudice as a reaction to self-threat
– self-affirmation eliminates stereotyping of outgroup members - mortality salience and worldview protection
- self-affirmation eliminates defensive worldview protection when confronted with own mortality
Explain personal uncertainty as a threat to the self
can compensatory conviction be eliminated with self-affirmation?
Personal uncertainty: identity crisis that arises from awareness of having inconsistent or unclear self-relevant cognition
compensatory conviction: we tend to cope with the threat of personal uncertainty by emphasizing certainty and hardening our attitudes in unrelated domains
Describe McGregor et al.’s study on personal uncertainty (2001).
can compensatory conviction be eliminated with self-affirmation?
Method: confronted Ps with important uncertainties
- personal dilemma: write about a personal dilemma
- control: write about a friend’s dilemma
within the personal dilemma condition, experimental manipulation:
- self-affirmation: write about important personal value and how you’ve behaved consistently with this in the past
- no affirmation: write about why an unimportant value might be important to other people
assessed compensatory conviction
- agreement with statements about social issues, e.g.,
– “capital punishment is absolutely never justified”
– “a murderer deserves to die”
Finding:
- self-affirmation eliminates compensatroy conviction
Explain stereotyping and prejudice in relation to threats to the self.
threats to the self may lead people to endorse prejudicial attitudes in an attempt to restore self-integrity
- when a person feels bad about themselves, denigrating an outgroup can make them feel better about themselves
Hypothesis: providing people with another way to self-affirm should reduce prejudicial attitudes
Describe Fein & Spencer’s first study on whether threats to self increase prejudice (1997).
Method: Ps told they would complete 2-part study
Part 1: intelligence test
- experimental manipulation
– threat to self: negative feedback
– no threat: positive feedback
- assessed state self-esteem
Part 2: “How employees evaluate candidates in hiring process”
- evaluated job candidate based on work experience, academic record, skills, photo
- experimental manipulation:
– some Ps led to beleive the candidate is Jewish
– others led to believe the candidate is Italian
rate how favourably they viewed the candidate
re-assessed state self-esteem
Results: evaluation of candidate
- threat to self led to prejudicial attitude against outgroup member (Jewish candidate)
Results: changes in self-esteem:
- those who experienced threat to self and rated Jewish candidate showed largest increase in self-esteem
- threat to self led to prejudicial attitudes which increased self-esteem
suggests that prejudice partly stems from a desire to restore self-integrity
