Block 5 (Part 2) Flashcards
(31 cards)
Self-Efficacy
the belief that you are able to effectively perform the tasks needed to attain a valued goal
Self-Report Measure
a type of questionnaire in which participants answer question whose answers correspond to numerical values that can be added to create an overall index of some construct
Task-Specific Measures of Self-Efficacy
measures that ask about self-efficacy beliefs for a particular task (e.g. athletic self-efficacy or academic self-efficacy)
Verbal Persuasion
when trusted people (friends, family, experts) influence your self-efficacy for better or worse by either encouraging or discouraging you about your ability to succeed
Imaginal Performances
when imagining yourself doing well increases self-efficacy
Vicarious Performances
when seeing other people succeed or fail leads to changes in self-efficacy
Performance Experiences
when past successes or failures lead to changes in self-efficacy
Self-Regulation
the complex process through which people control their thoughts, emotions, and actions
Collective Efficacy
the shared beliefs among members of a group about the group’s ability to effectively perform the tasks needed to attain a valued goal
What is self-enhancement?
people tend to rate themselves unduly high on practically every dimension that they value
we maintain our unduly high self-evaluations by treating evidence about ourselves differently from the way we treat evidence about others
What are self-serving cognitions?
beliefs about oneself that serve to enhance self
people tend to take credit for success and distance themselves from failure, all while seeing themselves as objective and not biased
people exhibit an optimistic bias about their own future, judging desirable events as more likely to occur than undesirable events
What is the actor-observer effect?
the person who performs an action commonly attributes the action to the situation; in contrast, an observer of the same action is likely to attribute it to the actor’s internal characteristics
What are possible explanations of the actor-observer effects?
knowledge-across-situations hypothesis
visual-orientation hypothesis
What is the knowledge-across-situations hypothesis?
makes us aware of own behavior in all situations and know that it varies
we do not think that other people’s behaviors vary across situations
What is accepting praise?
people tend to accept praise at face value
most of us hear many more positive statements about ourselves than negative statements
How do people remember success?
people generally exhibit better long-term memory for positive events and successes in their lives than for negative events and failures
doesn’t apply to our perception of others
How people define their own criteria for success?
people may evaluate themselves by those measures that are most favorable to themselves
inflation is stronger for endeavors in which the criteria are ambiguous
What is self-handicapping?
behaviors designed to sabotage one’s own performance in order to provide a subsequent excuse for failure
set up failure: set one’s goals extremely high
“sandbagging”: playing down ability or lowering expectations
What are gender differences in self-handicapping?
men are more likely to self-handicap
women tend to use sandbagging more
Why is self-handicapping an ingenious strategy?
when the odds are stacked against us, we’re shielded from failure and praised for success
What are the costs of self-handicapping?
increases risk of failure, doesn’t cause people to like you
What is basking in the glory of others?
to raise our self-esteem we often bask in reflected glory (“BIRG”) by associating with others who are successful
to protect our self-esteem, we will “cut off reflected failure” (“CORF”) by distancing ourselves from others who fail or are of low status
What is downward social comparison?
when self-esteem is at stake, tend to make comparisons with others who are worse off
will make temporal comparisons between past and present selves
when victimized by tragic life events, people like to affiliate with others in the same predicament who have adjusted well, but they tend to compare themselves with others who are worse off
Are positive illusions adaptive?
those with the most realistic view of themselves are those who are depressed or low in self-esteem (make fewer self-serving attributions)
positive illusions are “health-protective” psychological resources that help people cope with adversity
but, positive illusions can lead to chronic patterns of self-defeating behaviors
