Chapter 2 Terms

Question 1

Self-concept

Answer 1

A person’s answers to the question: “Who am I?”

Question 2

Self-schema

Answer 2

Beliefs about self that organize and guide the processing of self-relevant information.

Question 3

Possible selves

Answer 3

Images of what we dream of or dread becoming in the future.

Question 4

Social identity

Answer 4

The “we” aspect of our self-concept. The part of our answer to “Who am I?” that comes from our group memberships.

Question 5

Social comparison

Answer 5

Evaluating your abilities and opinions by comparing yourself to others.

Question 6

Individualism

Answer 6

The concept of giving priority to one’s own goals over group goals and defining one’s identity in terms of personal attributes rather than group identifications.

Question 7

Collectivism

Answer 7

Giving priority to the goals of one’s groups and defining one’s identity accordingly

Question 8

Interdependent self

Answer 8

Construing one’s identity in relation to others.

Question 9

Planning fallacy

Answer 9

The tendency to underestimate how long it will take to complete a task.

Question 10

Impact bias

Answer 10

Overestimating the enduring impact of emotion-causing events.

Question 11

Immune neglect

Answer 11

The human tendency to underestimate the speed and strength of the “psychological immune system,” which enables emotional recovery and resilience after bad things happen.

Question 12

Dual attitudes

Answer 12

Differing implicit and explicit attitudes towards the same object. Verbalized explicit attitudes may change with education and persuasion; implicit attitudes change slowly, with practice that forms new habits.

Question 13

Self-esteem

Answer 13

A person’s overall self-evaluation or sense of self-worth.

Question 14

Learned helplessness

Answer 14

The hopelessness and resignation learned when a human or animal has no perceived control over repeated bad events.

Question 15

Self-serving bias

Answer 15

The tendency to perceive yourself favourably

Question 16

Self-serving attributions

Answer 16

A form of self-serving bias; the tendency to attribute positive outcomes to yourself and negative outcomes to other factors.

Question 17

False consensus effect

Answer 17

The tendency to overestimate the commonality of one’s opinions and one’s undesirable or unsuccessful behaviours.

Question 18

False uniqueness effect

Answer 18

The tendency to underestimate the commonality of one’s abilities and one’s desirable or successful behaviours.

Question 19

Temporal comparison.

Answer 19

A comparison between how the self is viewed now and how the self was viewed in the past or how the self is expected to be viewed in the future.

Question 20

Group-serving bias

Answer 20

Explaining away out-group members’ positive behaviours to their dispositions (while excusing such behaviour by one’s own group).

Question 21

Self-handicapping

Answer 21

Protecting one’s self-image with behaviours that create handy excuse for later failure.

Question 22

Self-presentation

Answer 22

The act of expressing yourself and behaving in ways designed to create a favourable impression or an impression that corresponds to your ideals.

Question 23

Self-monitoring

Answer 23

Being attuned to the way you present yourself in social situations and adjusting your performance to create the desired impression.