Midterms Flashcards

Question

What are the conceptual problems with the idea of a true self?

Answer 1

1) Natural Endowment * Natural endowment of a true self is not a provable idea * How to assess a baby’s potential? * Suggests that babies are born with specific destiny/ motivations for adult life which seems unlikely * No way to prove that at birth, any particular baby is destined to pursue one path * No way that we can examine/test this 2) Self-Beliefs are Inaccurate * Idea of true self requires that people have accurate self-knowledge about what their true self is like * But, lots of research suggests that our self-concepts are full of inaccuracies, biases, and are distorted (ex: better-than-average effect) * Suggests that no self-concept is fully “true” (likely to have some inaccuracies in it) 3) True Self = What is “Good” * True self seems to be more about social desirability, rather than acting in line with one’s unique characteristics * In daily diary study, people report feeling most authentic when accepting external influence when making personal decisions * People report feeling most authentic when behaving in desirable ways, rather than consistent with their actual personalities * People assume that others are being their “true selves” when they are behaving in a morally good way * Ex: often when someone close to you is acting poorly, we tend to explain these behaviours away and not make this about their true selves

Answer 2

* When do people feel most authentic? * Method: 97 participants in a lab study * First rated themselves on “Trait” Big Five: what are they generally like? * Participated in 10 1hr lab sessions in small groups * Each lab session consisted of 1-2 activities * Ex: Playing Twister, painting a picture, discussing medical ethics (diversity of activities to do so they could pull on people's different traits) * During activities, self-reported on “State” Big Five (how extroverted, agreeable, open to new experience, conscientious, emotionally stable are you behaving right now? -> ex: while playing twister, maybe someone felt they were being extroverted even though they're introverted) and on “State” authenticity (how authentic do you feel right now?) * Results: evidence for desirable-trait hypothesis * Authenticity was positively associated with acting extroverted, agreeable, conscientious, and emotionally stable, regardless of the participant’s trait/typical Big Five personality * Suggests that people felt more authentic when behaving in socially desirable ways (in North American society), rather than in ways consistent with their personality

Answer 3

* The true self is more of a guide, than a reality * Doesn't mean that this is an idea that we should totally abandon and that it doesn't exist * Desired reputation (Baumeister, 2019) = what is valued by society (ideals) + what distinctive role one’s own abilities and traits are best suited to (actual self) * Baumeister views the true self as people feeling most authentic when actions are consistent and are perceived by others as consistent with desired reputation * Slightly different with different people

Answer 4

* Linville (1985; 1987) * About the structure and the organization of self-concept * People’s self-concepts differ in: 1. # of self-aspects 2. Degree to which these self-aspects are distinct from each other * High self-complexity and low self-complexity

Answer 5

* High self-complexity: many self-aspects that are relatively distinct from each other * Low self-complexity: few self-aspects that have a high degree of overlap with each other

Answer 6

1) Affective (emotional) spillover: * Because of links between self-aspects and spreading activation, emotions associated with one self-aspect will “spillover” to other self-aspects * Emotional spreading effect * More affective spillover for people with low self-complexity -> harder to deal with 2) Affective extremity for low self-complexity * Low self-complexity: greater spillover causes more extreme emotional reactions/fluctuations and changes in self-esteem (for both negative and positive life events) * High self-complexity: less spillover allows for more emotional stability 3) High self-complexity as a stress buffer * High self-complexity may serve as a buffer against negative consequences of stressful life events * May explain why some people are more resilient in the face of stress/negative events * Some people seem to be able to have more perspective on these things and be less negative

Answer 7

* How does self-complexity affect the relationship between failure and emotional reactions? * How does it affect people's emotional reactions to failure * Methods: * Linville developed a new task: the self-complexity measured via trait sort * Ps were then told that they were going to get an analytical thinking task * Experimental manipulation: Ps given bogus success/failure feedback from analytic task (randomized and not accurate of performance) * Current (state) mood and self-esteem assessed * Findings: * Low self-complexity showed significant and largest change in mood and self-esteem following failure/success feedback * Evidence of spillover and affective extremity (more intense variation between low SC and high SC people)

Answer 8

* Is low self-complexity also associated with more variation in mood over time? * Method: Field study to look at swings in emotions over 2 weeks * Self-complexity measured using trait sort * Ps completed daily emotion diary for 14 days * Results: low self-complexity associated with greater variation in emotion ratings over time (more fluctuation in mood overtime), even outside of the lab * Spillover is sort of like the mechanism behind affect extremity

Answer 9

* Does high self-complexity protect against the negative health effects of stress? * Method: measured the following at baseline and again 2 weeks later: * Self-complexity using trait sort * Stressful events experienced by student (ex: finances, employment, accidents, living situation) * Indicators of negative health consequences (Depression, Perceived stress, Illness symptoms) * Results: following stressful events, people high in self-complexity (vs low in self-complexity) showed less depression, less perceived stress, fewer physical symptoms of illness (including flu) * No difference in # of stressful events experienced between low and high self- complexity people * Seems to be something about how they're coping with these events because high and low SC experience similar stressful events * Evidence that self-complexity buffers against negative effects of stress

Answer 10

* Review of 24 studies examining stress buffering effects of self-complexity: * 7 studies support stress-buffering hypothesis * 4 found reverse (low SC has more of a stress buffering effect than high SC) * Rest didn’t show any effect

Answer 11

* Rafaeli-Mor & Steinberg (2002) * There's some sort of moderation going on * Some circumstance where the effect is real and true and some circumstance where it's not 1) Differences in well-being measure (dependent variable) * Positive effect of self-complexity on mood and emotional stability but more mixed results when measuring self-esteem or depression 2) One part of definition of self-complexity is more important than the other (independent variable) * # of self-aspects -> positive effect on well-being * Degree of distinction between self-aspects -> no effect on well-being * Across studies, researchers find that it's the number of self-aspects that have an impact on stress buffering and wellbeing but the degree to which these are interlinked seems to have no effect on wellbeing 3) Integration of self-aspects also matters * Having high self-complexity (many self-aspects) may only be helpful if self-aspects are well-integrated into a clear and coherent sense of self * If someone has many self-aspects but doesn't know how to integrate these different self-aspects, then high self-complexity may lead to confusion about self and may result in feeling fragmented

Answer 12

* Campbell (1996) * Extent to which the contents of the self-concept are clearly defined, consistent with each other, and stable * Reflects the extent to which you feel like you know who you are * High SCC = you have this sense that you know who you are as a person * High SCC = Remi * Low SCC = Pablo * Sometimes he sees himself as creative, assertive and social and other times he sees himself as needy, depressed and a loner * The way he defines himself differs from week-to-week

Answer 13

* Both constructs that are used to try and explain how the self-concept is organized * SCC is independent and unrelated to self-complexity * A person could be high in self-complexity but low in SCC (and vice versa) * Ex: they have many different self-aspects but lacking in clarity, consistency, and coherence between these different self-aspects

Answer 14

* High SCC is associated with: * More emotional stability * Less rumination about the self * Less loneliness * Lower feelings of depression and perceived stress * Higher self-esteem * Higher perception of meaning in life * Higher general life-satisfaction * Suggests that SCC is important for well-being * High SCC comes with a lot of benefits

Answer 15

* Recent study where they wanted to look at whether having SCC helps with acute stress * They had people in Italy complete a daily diary in a study and then the pandemic hit and this was very hard on people * Italy was affected badly with COVID * On average, high SCC people experienced fewer negative emotions compared to low SCC people at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic * High SCC appears to facilitate more adaptive responses during times of intense uncertainty/stress (coping better and more resilient) * Hypothesis: when there's lots of uncertainty going on around us, someone with high SCC can use their sense of self as a grounding force

Answer 16

1) Age * SCC varies throughout our lives and age * Our SCC tends to lowest in early 20s and then continues to increase until your 60s and then it plateaus downward * Explanations: retirement, death of loved ones in 60s * Depending on how old somebody is, there are periods in life where things are more stable and there are periods in life where things are unstable * In early 20s, this is a period of exploration and discovering yourself * More stability in middle age * There are many changes that occur later in life that leads to more confusion about the self 2) Changes to social roles? * Academic/job changes * Relationship changes * Hobby changes * There will be fluctuations in SCC when we're experiencing changes in our social roles

Answer 17

* Do role changes lead to lower SCC? * Methods: Collected writing samples from an online forum for new parents * Research assistants analyzed and rated writing for: * Degree of self-concept confusion (more self-concept confusion = lower SCC): “To what extent is the participant confused or uncertain about who they are as a person/about their identity?” * Amount of self-concept change: “To what extent has the transition to parenthood changed the participants’ perceptions of who they are as a person – the content of their self-concept?” * Positivity of self-change: “How positive would you rate the participant’s feelings about their experienced role transition?” * Findings: * SCC depends on amount of self-change and how positive the person feels about the change * For those who felt positively about the role transition, no relationship between amount of self-change and SCC * For those who felt less positive about the role transition, more self-change associated with less SCC (more self-concept confusion) * Replicated this with a few other role changes and found same pattern across different role transitions (ex: new parents, newlyweds, newly divorced)

Answer 18

* Role transitions are one factor affecting SCC * Role entries (ex: getting married) and exits (ex: getting divorced) predict lower SCC if person doesn’t feel particularly positively about the way the new role has changed them

Answer 19

self-complexity and self-concept clarity

Answer 20

1. Self-perception: we observe our overt behaviours and use these observations to infer what we’re like * Similar to how we infer what other people are like 2. Introspection: we direct our attention inwards to our internal states (thoughts and feelings) and use this self-awareness to draw conclusions about what we're like

Answer 21

- Self-perception: I pursue my goals until I achieve them. Even when I fail, I keep going until I succeed. I must be determined - Introspection: I often think about what’s right and wrong. I must have a strong conscience.

Answer 22

* Do people generally feel like their internal states are a more important source of self-knowledge or is behaviour a more important source of self-knowledge * Asked if someone were to get to know you, which one of these was the best source? * Having access to their internal states for a day or for several months * Observing their behaviour for a day or for several months * Talking to their friends + family for a day or for several months * People report that knowing their internal states is better for understanding what they’re really like compared to knowing their behaviour or interviewing close ones * People said that having access to their internal states was significantly more informative of who they are * Simply having access to their thoughts and feelings for one day was significantly more informative than observing their behaviour and how they engage with their friends and family for one day and several months

Answer 23

* How does access to internal states vs behaviour shape others’ impressions? * Method: 60 participants listened to interviews with strangers describing themselves and had to rate them on a personality measure * Assigned to 1of 3 conditions: * Cognitive/affective: Interviewee describing past thoughts and feelings * Behavioural: Interviewee describing past behaviour * Control: Interviewee describing mix of past thoughts, feelings, and behaviour * The strangers/interviewees in the video had also rated themselves so the researchers could compare the impression the Ps formed with the impression the interviewees had of themselves * More “accurate” impression = higher correlation between interviewee’s own self-ratings of personality and participant’s ratings of them * Findings: * Cognitive/affective: correlation of 0.52 (highest) * Behavioural: correlation of 0.37 * Control: correlation of 0.42 * Here they're getting more info because they're getting both, but the correlation is still lower * Knowing what a person's behaviour is like as well as their internal states is sort of distracting in terms of not knowing what to base their judgement on * Cognitive/affective interviews produced impressions that are most in line with interviewee’s self-ratings * Suggests that knowing thoughts and feelings is most useful for knowing someone well

Answer 24

* People prioritize awareness of their thoughts and feelings (vs behaviours) to construct self-knowledge and believe this is most revealing of what others are like * Why? * Recognize that actions can be influenced by external factors so think that thoughts and feelings are more revealing of inner self * People can sort of intuitively recognize that behaviour is ambiguous (ex: you're walking down the street and say hi to someone you know and they just keep walking -> you can interpret this behaviour in many different ways) * Self-perception may be more useful for forming self-knowledge when people are unclear about their internal states * Ex: when not sure how you feel about about parties, you can observe behaviours * Assumption that introspection is useful source of self-knowledge is shared by much of psychology research which relies on self-report * For someone to be engaging in self-report, they rely on introspection and we generally assume that these are accurate * Do people accurately introspect?

Answer 25

* Are people aware of what impacts their mood? * Method: Daily diary study of undergrads for 5 weeks * Every evening rated (1= very bad, 7 = very good) overall mood and several predictors of mood (the weather, relationships with friends, workload, sleep, exercise) * At the end of the study Ps estimated the relationship between their mood and each predictor (ex: how do you think sleep affected your mood?) * 22 additional observers reported on what they thought the average relationship is between mood and each predictor * Researchers calculated actual correlation between mood and each predictor * Compared these with participants’ and observers’ estimates * Higher correlation = more accurate judgments about predictors of mood * If we assume that people know themselves and can accurately introspect on their mood we would expect a more accurate correlation from Ps than observers * Results: * Average participant accuracy correlation = 0.42 (moderate) * Shows that Ps made fairly accurate judgments about how various predictors influenced their mood, but also indicates that they made quite a few errors * 49% of subjects got the direction of at least one estimate backwards (ex: thinking good sleep had a positive impact on their mood but it actually had a negative impact) * Average accuracy correlation for observer = 0.46 * Shows that observers were just as accurate judges of predictors of mood as were the Ps themselves * Suggests that people don’t have real, unique understanding of their mood, but instead rely on shared theories about predictors of mood

Answer 26

* People don’t have a genuine understanding of why they think and feel the way they do * Introspection may be more useful for labelling or describing internal states, but not very useful for explaining why we have these in the first place * Wilson (2002): suggests that people should take psychology courses which educate you on why people are the way they are if they want to understand themselves rather than relying on introspection

Answer 27

1. Social Comparison 2. Looking-Glass Self 3. Social groups we belong to 4. Including close others in the self

Answer 28

* The self-concept depends on our social interactions * There is no self without others/social interaction * Because self-concept so critically depends on others in our world (extreme position) * The idea is that the social world probably accounts for the majority of our understanding of ourselves

Answer 29

* We compare ourselves with others (at least one other person) to form conclusions about our relative standing on attributes, abilities, opinions, etc. * Ex: you can only conclude that you’re introverted by comparing yourself to others on introversion * Introspection and self-perception often rely on comparison

Answer 30

* We tend to engage in social comparison automatically and because of this it's responsible for people's fluctuations in self-esteem * Direction of comparison influences self-esteem * Upward: comparing ourselves to people that are better than us which leads to a decrease in self-esteem * Downward: comparing ourselves to people that are worse than us which leads to an increase in self-esteem

Answer 31

* We construct our self-concept based on how others see us * Thought to be very fundamental to our self-concept * Infer how others see us using their direct feedback and their behaviours towards us (ex: facial expression, sighs, etc.) * Not just close others, but also how others generally see us * Cyclical process: * We observe how others react to us (direct feedback or behaviours) * We infer others perception of us * We internalize this into our self-concept * This then guides our behaviour

Answer 32

* Research examining looking-glass self compares (correlates): * Participants’ self-report of their own personality/behaviour * Observers’ reports of participants’ personality/behaviour (these are either strangers or close ones) * If looking-glass self theory is true, would expect a high correlation between self-report and observer report

Answer 33

* Literature review of looking-glass self research shows that there is no consistent relationship between self-reports and observer reports (some studies find a positive correlation and some find a negative correlation) * But there is a strong positive relationship between people’s self- reports of their own personality and how they think they are perceived by others (especially for people that are important to us) * What seems to be true is that there's no consistent relationship between how people see themselves and how others see them but there's a very high correlation between how we think others see us and how we see ourselves * Why? 1) Others rarely provide full, honest feedback to us * Feedback is often ambiguous (ex: facial expression) * People rarely directly tell us what they think of us * We’re probably exposed to more honest feedback in childhood and less in adulthood which may be part of why self-beliefs formed in childhood endure into adulthood * Feedback is often also contradictory (ex: in some context someone may be positively commenting on how you make jokes and another may be commenting negatively on how you make jokes) 2) We often dismiss or rationalize away negative feedback * Healthy that we don’t incorporate all feedback because this would lead us to constantly change our self-concept and this would be confusing

Answer 34

Looking-glass self means that the self-concept is shaped by how we think others see us, not by how they actually see us

Answer 35

* We place ourselves and others into social groups and this process shapes our self-concepts and our perceptions of others (ex: race, ethnicity, gender) * Social groups provide members with a sense of shared identity that prescribes standards for what members should be like, believe, and behave * Self-stereotyping: we take on and conform to the shared identity of a social group in order to be accepted as part of that group by others * More likely to do this with groups that are important to us * Process: What are the characteristics of the social group I value? -> Self-stereotyping -> Validation by others that I'm a good member of the group (desired outcome)

Answer 36

* Behavioural evidence * Method: 153 Liberal Arts and Engineering majors * Rated ingroup and outgroup on 90 traits (1-7 scale) -> ex: domineering, sympathetic, cheerful * 1-3 = descriptive vs 5-7 = not descriptive * Me-Not Me reaction time (RT) task (they see a word come up on the screen (a trait or descriptor) and all the participant has to do is click "me" or "not me" and they're calculating their reaction times to these words) * Rated same 90 traits as self-descriptive or not * Compared performance on RT task to ratings of ingroup * If self-concept is based on perception of ingroup, would expect faster RTs for traits where self and ingroup are similar because cognitively linked * Would also expect slower RTS for traits where self and ingroup are dissimilar because creates an internal conflict * Results: * Faster RTs for traits on which a person sees themselves as matching the ingroup than for traits in which there is a mismatch * Both for yes/yes and no/no * Suggests that perception of self is linked with perception of ingroup

Answer 37

* Group membership is also often defined in contrast to outgroups * Means that the formation of some self-knowledge is a rejection of elements that are associated with an outgroup * Not only is people's self-concept shaped by trying to be like ingroup it's also shaped by trying to not be like an outgroup * Trying to reject features that are characteristic of an outgroup and adopting features that are a rejection of outgroup characteristics

Answer 38

* Self-description/behaviour in a social identity is determined by: * Expectations/standards for that identity * People’s unique strengths and preferences * Means that people don’t just rigidly adhere to a group identity, but figure out how to make it their own

Answer 39

* In close relationships, we incorporate the others’ characteristics into our own self-concepts * Ex: taking on a close others’ perspectives and characteristics * Ex: becoming more interested in chess because your best friend loves playing chess * Ex: close friends, family members, partners * Rather than thinking of self and other as completely distinct, with the people you are close to, there is overlap * Referring to you and friend or you and partner as "we" * Ex: "We" love going to the waterpark

Answer 40

* Do people confuse their partners’ traits for their own? * Method: Married graduate students rated traits for how descriptive they are of self and of spouse * Me-not me reaction time task: is the trait on the screen descriptive of you or not? * Greater self-other confusion indicated by: * Longer RTs for traits that are different between self and spouse (disentanglement) * More errors for traits that are different between self and spouse (given opposite rating of what the subject originally indicated) * Findings: * Ps were slower and made more mistakes on traits that differed between self and spouse (for both “me” and “not-me” judgments) -> because they were confused and had to disentangle * Mistake: if a person initially indicated they were extroverted and they pressed not me on the me-not me task * More likely to make mistakes when descriptive of them and not of their partner or of their partner and not of them * Suggests that close others and their characteristics become incorporated into the self-concept (to the point where we get confused)

Answer 41

* Theories of interpersonal sources of self-knowledge point to routes to self-concept change: 1) Social role changes * Gains and losses of social roles trigger changes to the self-concept * Initially comes with a period of self-concept confusion (low SCC) if perceiving a lot of change and feeling less positively about it * Gains particularly likely in early adulthood and losses particularly likely in late adulthood 2) Changing the looking-glass * People can purposely initiate a change to their self-concept if they believe they are perceived by others in an undesirable way (don't like their looking glass self) * Ex: a person thinks that their friends don't see them as a good friend * Focus is on changing perception of self by behaving differently until person thinks that others see the self in the desired way * Consistent with idea that desired reputation is most important self 3) Changes to who one is close to * Since self-concept is partially a result of who a person is close to, means that the self-concept will change when we become closer to new people * Folk wisdom: "you're the sum of the 6 closest people to you"

Answer 42

* When we change our point of comparison, this should result in a change in our self-concept * One of the ways we figure something out about ourselves is how we compare ourselves to others * Ex: imagine someone grows up in a very adventurous family, perhaps in comparison to them, them being more cautious makes them feel like they're more prudent * Then if they go to school and meet way more people that are cautious, suddenly after maybe going on a hike, they may perceive themselves as adventurous after all

Answer 43

* Our search for self-knowledge is guided by a few self-evaluation motives (not a neutral process): * Self-assessment * Self-enhancement

Answer 44

* Motive to see ourselves accurately * This is a very old idea -> Ancient greek: "know thy self" * Leads to people seeking objective feedback about their abilities and characteristics to reduce uncertainty about the self- concept * Pragmatic function because allows us to develop accurate and realistic goals for ourselves * Often in competition with the self-enhancement motive

Answer 45

* Motive to maximize how positively we see ourselves * Functions to attain or maintain self-esteem * Guides people toward situations in which they believe they will excel or can promote their positive qualities which will help them increase their self-esteem * Leads us to seek self-knowledge that is enhancing and therefore often biased and unrealistic * This self-enhancement motive leads us to have a few illusions of ourselves

Answer 46

* Most people have illusions about the self * Triad of illusions: 1. Overly positive self-evaluations 2. Illusions of control 3. Unrealistic optimism bias (often about our futures) * Taylor & Brown (1988) surveyed the literature at the time and concluded we all possess these 3 illusions

Answer 47

* People tend to use more positive traits to describe themselves than negative traits * People tend to include basically no negative self-aspects in their self-concepts * We’re more likely to forget negative feedback about ourselves than positive feedback * When people are asked to remember successes vs their failures, they remember successes more easily * Tendency to engage in downward (vs upward) social comparisons * Self-serving attributional bias * Tend to see our talents as unique and weaknesses as common * Indirect pieces of evidence that we see ourselves in a positive way (could make the argument that maybe the reason why we use more positive traits is actually because we're great)

Answer 48

- We claim credit for successes but blame failures on the situation or others - Ex: getting a good grade vs a bad grade

Answer 49

- Direct Evidence for Illusory Self-Evaluations: 1. Better-than-average-effect 2. We rate ourselves better than objectively warranted

Answer 50

* Most people rate their abilities as better than the average person even though it's statistically impossible for most people to be above average * People tend to rate themselves as better-than-average in a whole bunch of characteristics: * Intelligence * Attractiveness (ex: if you ask someone how attractive you think they are on a scale of 1-10, most people say 7) * Reliability * Loyalty * Kindness * Wisdom * Interesting * But a person may be accurate in their perception of themselves as above-average in a particular domain * First documentation of this effect was with regards to driving (Svenson, 1980) * About 90% of Americans said they thought they were a better than average driver * Even when they did follow-up studies where they went to the hospital and interviewed people who were hospitalized for causing the car accident, they argued they were no worse than the norm

Answer 51

* They correlated how likely people were to say they possessed some positive trait and how socially desirable they thought that trait was * The more desirable a trait, the more people see themselves as better than average on this trait (r = 0.77) * The more desirable a trait, the more likely people see this trait as descriptive of themselves (r = 0.92) * Positive correlations -> these correlations are very high for the field of psychology * Usually only see around 0.4 correlations

Answer 52

* Got Ps to rate themselves on a whole bunch of abilities and then gave them objective tests on all sorts of topics (ex: logical reasoning, grammar, humour) * People consistently over-estimate their ability in various domains, especially those that are below average in a domain * Everyone said they were in the 50th and 70th percentile regardless of their actual test score

Answer 53

* Limited to individualistic cultures? * Limited to people with moderate - high self-esteem? * Researchers have examined this in these 2 populations

Answer 54

* Hypothesis: self-enhancement is unique/ more evident in individualistic societies * Consistent with cultural ideal of uniqueness and self-assertion * Inconsistent with collectivistic/Eastern values of belonging and fitting in with a group * When looking at self-esteem scores in European Canadian and Japanese sample, Western samples report higher self-esteem than Japanese samples * 10-50 represents the possible scores that someone could get on the Rosenberg (measure -> Rosenberg Self-Esteem is the most popular test of self-esteem) * Meaning 30 is the mid-scale * In North American samples, it's positively skewed * People that score below the midpoint on self-esteem is very rare in north America * VS Japanese sample (on the right) where the mean is closer to the midpoint * Researchers also found acculturation in self-esteem * Looked at a person's self-esteem score and their exposure to North American Culture * Found that the more exposure Japanese individuals had to North American culture, the higher their self-esteem score was (positive correlation) * 3rd generation immigrants are indistinguishable from European Canadians in terms of self esteem scores

Answer 55

* Fundamental need for positive self-views so self-enhancement is universal, just looks different in different cultures * Hypothesis: People will self-enhance on traits that are important and consistent with cultural values * People in individualistic cultures will self-enhance on individualistic traits * People in collectivistic cultures will self-enhance on collectivistic traits * Possible explanation for graphs in Heine et al. (1999) study is because the Rosenberg Scale was developed in North America and they assess self-esteem in a North American way * Method: recruited American and Japanese students * Rated how well individualistic and collectivistic traits described them compared to a typical cultural group member on a scale from -5 to 5 * -5: much less than typical group member * 0: about the same as the typical group member * 5: much more than the typical group member * Findings: * The Y axis has no negative numbers -> everyone was self-enhancing on every trait (individualistic or collectivistic traits) * Americans self-enhanced more on individualistic traits, and Japanese self-enhanced more on collectivistic traits * Evidence for self-enhancement across cultures

Answer 56

* Individualistic: * Free * Independent * Leader * Original * Self-reliant * Separate * Unconstrained * Unique * Collectivistic: * Agreeable * Compromising * Cooperative * Good listener * Loyal * Patient * Respectful * Self-sacrificing

Answer 57

* What about trait personality level self-esteem? * What about low self-esteem people? * Tice (1991) found that self-enhancement is universal, just looks different depending on a person’s self-esteem * Moderate to high self-esteem: more likely to use self-advancement * Low self-esteem: more likely to use self-protection

Answer 58

1) Self-advancement: * Increasing how positively you see yourself (ex: overly positive self-evaluations) 2) Self-protection: limiting how negatively you see yourself by avoiding or deflecting threats to self-esteem * Attributing failures to external circumstances (self-serving attribution bias) * Avoiding situations that might lead to failure * Downplaying the importance of negative events * Self-handicapping

Answer 59

- Creating obstacles that can later be blamed for failure - Ex: procrastination, lack of effort - Form of self-protection - And if you end up doing well, then you come up on top even more - Self-esteem protective mechanism

Answer 60

* The idea that we have control/agency over our lives is central to most theories of self-esteem and well-being/mental health * But, personal control beliefs tend to be greater than what’s justified (illusory): * Ex: people believe they have more control over outcome of dice if they’re allowed to throw them than if someone else throws them * Ex: people believe that choosing own lottery tickets will lead to better outcome, even when told, in a research setting, that the lottery tickets have better odds of winning, people still rely on choosing their own lottery tickets * Some argue that free will is an illusion (old philosophical debate) * Mostly rely on evidence from neuroscience

Answer 61

* Typically neuroscience study that looks at this * All the P has to do is that they're told that when they feel like it, press this button * They eventually press the button * They're then asked when they felt the urge that they were going to press the button * It would make sense that they would make a conscious decision to press the button first and then press the button * The Ps are wearing an EEG cap and the neural signals from their brain (motor cortex) are being recorded * You would assume that the neurons in the motor cortex should be active when they're moving their hand to push the button and when the person is experiencing the decision to press the button (preparatory signals before initiating a signal) * Findings: neurons fire before they have a conscious experience/desire to push the button * Neurons in motor area begin firing ~1500ms before decision to move (W) * Just by examining people's neuro signals alone, the researchers could predict when people would become consciously aware of when they wanted to move * Based on neural firing in motor area, able to predict a person’s decision to move with 80% accuracy 700 ms before they were consciously aware of deciding to move * Suggests that decisions to move are not made consciously even though it feels that way

Answer 62

* People tend to think that they are less likely than others to experience negative events and more likely to experience positive events * Test: * Difficult to establish whether an individual is being overly optimistic * Easier to test by asking people to compare self to others: * How likely is it that ____ will happen to you? * How likely is it that ____ will happen to a peer (same age, gender, education level, etc.)? * On a group level, not everyone can have a bright future * We know it's illusory when looking at group level data * It's not possible for everyone's life to be positive and bright

Answer 63

* Compared to others, people believe that they are less likely to: * Get into a car accident * Be a victim of a crime * Experience severe illness * Experience depression * Get divorced * Compared to others, people believe that they are more likely to: * Like their first job * Have a good starting salary * Have a gifted child * Live past 80 * These are illusions because it's not possible for every single person to not experience these negative events or experience all of these positive events

Answer 64

* Data on how smokers perceive the risk of developing lung cancer * Smokers underestimate their risk of lung cancer compared to non-smokers, but also compared to the average smoker * Regardless of how much people smoke, they think their actual relative risk of developing lung cancer is pretty low * Not a rational prediction based on what the data shows

Answer 65

* Can this bias be eliminated when confronted with own risk factors for a health problem? * Method: 374 undergraduates reflected on their risk of developing a drinking problem * Experimental manipulation: * Risk-increasing: “List the risk factors that you possess that increase your chances of developing a drinking problem” * Control: did not list own risk factors * Then rated: own risk of developing a drinking problem and average college student’s risk of developing drinking problem * Findings: * Thinking about own risk factors for developing a drinking problem did not decrease optimism bias * Regardless of if people were in the risk-increasing or the control condition, they thought that their risk of developing a drinking problem was much lower than the average student

Answer 66

* Do individual differences in self-esteem, beliefs about control, and optimism about the future predict adjustment to college/university? * Method: 2 year study of 672 1st year students assessed every quarter * Assessed positive illusions (self-esteem, personal control, optimism) * Outcomes: * Psychological adjustment: mood and perceived stress * Productive work: GPA * Also wanted to examine mechanisms (coping strategies, social support, motivation) * Method: 2 year study of first students’ adjustment to university * Assessed positive illusions * Results: * Adjustment: higher self-esteem and more optimism led to better adjustment * Relationship between self-esteem and optimism and adjustment moderated by positive coping * GPA: higher self-esteem led to higher cumulative GPA * Relationship between self-esteem and GPA moderated by motivation * Suggests that positive illusions lead to better outcomes

Answer 67

* Are illusions still adaptive and helpful in more challenging circumstances? * Method: Investigated adaptive (vs maladaptive) consequences of unrealistic optimism * Recruited HIV+ and HIV- men * Measured AIDS-specific optimism * Ex: “I feel safe from AIDS because I’ve developed an immunity” * Ex: “I think my immune system is more capable of fighting the AIDS virus than that of other gay men” * Results: HIV+ men showed more AIDS-specific optimism than HIV– men * More AIDS-specific optimism associated with: * Higher perceived control * More active coping * More healthy behaviour * More likely to practice safe sex and exercise regularly * Follow-up study in men who didn’t know HIV status showed no differences in AIDS-specific optimism between HIV + and HIV – groups * Suggests that unrealistic optimism is an adaptive response and does not compromise health behavior -> the reason why HIV+ men were optimistic is because they developed this as a reaction to their diagnosis and this helped them cope with the news

Answer 68

* How does optimism affect how long people live with AIDS? * Method: Recruited men diagnosed with AIDS for 1 year * Assessed realistic acceptance (not unrealistic optimism) of diagnosis: * Ex: “I tried to accept what might happen” * Ex: “I prepare myself for the worst” * How does acceptance vs optimism affect survival? * Results: Estimated survival time 9 months shorter for individuals showing a high degree of acceptance * Found that generally the people that were more optimistic tended to live longer * At the 10 month mark it was much more likely for the men that were more optimistic to survive compared to those who were less optimistic * Compelling evidence that optimism bias is adaptive

Answer 69

* Illusions appear to positively impact our adjustment to the ups and downs of life as well as challenging major life events * Illusions are adaptive and appear to be fairly pervasive

Answer 70

* In this study, they taught people about these biases * They asked them how susceptible they thought they were to these biases * When informed of illusions and biases, people think they are less prone to them... which is itself self-enhancing * But on follow-up, these people demonstrated many of these biases

Answer 71

* Self-enhancement motive: trying to gain and maintain self-esteem * Many theories view self-esteem as a fundamental psychological need * Cognitive Bias in Self-Perception: * Inaccurate, overly charitable views of self (and accurate views of their others)? * Inaccurate, overly cynical views of others? (ex: better-than-average effect) * Cognitive biases in information processing: * Base-rate fallacy * Anchoring bias * Both motivational and cognitive processes result in biased self views that serve us well (or not?)

Answer 72

* What is the source of bias for feeling holier-than-thou? * Better than average effect applied to morality * People often believe they are more moral and kind than the average person * Charity event where students could buy daffodils and the money that they spent would go to a charity * Method: 5 weeks before charity event asked Ps “Will you buy at least one daffodil and, if so, how many?” * “Will a peer buy at least one daffodil?” * 3 days after event asked: “How many did you buy?” * Results: * 83% of students thought that they would buy at least 1 flower * Ps estimated that at least 50% (almost 60%) of their peers would buy a flower * People themselves predicted that they would buy 2 flowers and on average their peers would buy 1 1/2 flowers * Only 43% of students actually bought a flower * Generally people's predictions of what their peers would do are much closer to the reality of what people would do * Suggests that feeling “holier-than-thou”/better-than average effect is due to errors in judgments about self, not in judgments about others * The researchers did 3 other studies that essentially showed the same thing * Across 4 studies, people overestimate likelihood that they would choose the kinder action by an average of 32% (but only by 4% for others) * Means that seeing self as uniquely kind is due to having overly favourable views of self and not due to being overly cynical about others * Strange since we have so much information about ourselves * You would think that we should be more accurate about predicting our behaviours over other's behaviours

Answer 73

* Case-based: evidence relevant to the specific case or person under consideration * When thinking about how we would act in a situation, we're thinking from a case-based perspective * If we're using case-based info then we're probably wrong (base rate fallacy) * Distributional/base-rate: evidence about the distribution of behaviour in similar or past situations * People are generally pretty good at estimating the distribution of social behavior in various domains * When we make predictions about our own behaviour, we use case-based info * We have a clear sense of what we’re like as a person (ex: “kind”) * When we make predictions about an average person’s behaviour, we’re more likely to use base-rate info * Idea of “average person” is vague and abstract, so no case-based info is available, and therefore we have to rely on distributional info * Information-processing biases can lead to overly positive self views * We use case-based info to make judgments about the self

Answer 74

We tend to assign greater value to case-based info and often ignore base-rate or distributional info

Answer 75

* Do we use case-based info to predict own behavior and base-rate info to predict others’ behaviour? * Method: Participants received 5$ for participating in study * Received info about 3 charities * Told that future participants will have a chance of donating any or all of their study compensation to one of them * If in this situation, how much would you and average peer donate? * Then, learned about actual donations of 3, 7, then 13 people from earlier study and allowed to revise prediction after each new piece of info * Initially, people thought that they on average would be willing to donate 2.75$ * They also thought that peer on average would be willing to donate 2.25$ * Then they're given some base-rate info * People typically donate 1.50$ * Then asked if they wanted to update their predictions based on this new info * People said no, they didn't want to update their predictions * People updated their predictions to what an average peer would do to be pretty close to what the actual amount was, but they didn't update their predictions for themselves * This was still held for when they got the data for what an average person would do * Evidence of base-rate fallacy in self-perceptions * Base-rate info improved accuracy of predictions of peer’s behaviour, but didn't improve accuracy of predictions for own behaviour * Hung on to case-based info and rejected base-rate info * But this doesn’t rule out self-enhancement motivation * If really about hanging on to case-based info, and not self-enhancement, then any case-based info should prompt people to ignore distributional info

Answer 76

* Study: Does presence of any case-based info prompt ignoring of distributional info? * Method: repeated method of previous study but added 3rd prediction * Participants read a peer’s self-description * How much would you donate? * How much would average peer donate? * How much would this specific peer donate? * Findings: * People ignored base-rate info for self and for specific peer * Feeling holier than thou (better-than-average) not necessarily due to self- enhancement motivation, but base-rate fallacy * When people have case-based info, even if it's about themselves or others, they tend to stick with it * When people were making predictions about themselves or the individuated peer, they were more likely to consult personality assessment (case-based info) and when they were making predictions about others, they were more likely to consult behaviour of others (base-rate info)

Answer 77

Worse-Than-Average Effect

Answer 78

* Some better-than-average studies show that there are some domains where people tend to rate themselves as worse than others: * Concentration * Artistic ability * Acting ability * Mechanical ability * Everyone is assuming that they're below the 50th percentile of the average person

Answer 79

Anchoring bias is responsible for the better-than-average and worse-than-average effects

Answer 80

* Common human tendency to rely too heavily on the 1st piece of info that comes to mind/is offered (the anchor) when making a decision * This 1st piece of info serves as our anchor * Means that judgments will be biased towards anchor/info that we can easily retrieve * Ex: in stores, they always list the initial price and then put a slash through it and show the new price (ex: from 5000 to 4500)

Answer 81

* When comparing self and others... * We first think about our own abilities because they come to us automatically and effortlessly -> anchor * Only think about others’ ability after -> effortful and thus we insufficiently take this info into account * Causes our judgments of our ourselves to be biased by towards how we perceive our own ability in any given domain

Answer 82

* People’s own skills serve as an anchor, but we fail to consider the skills of others * Better-than-average effect in domains that are easy for most people * Anchor to own experience of task feeling effortless, failing to take into account that others may feel similarly * Worse-than-average effect in domain that are hard for most people * Anchor to own experience of task feeling hard, failing to take into account that others may feel similarly * Ex: pub trivia * Kruger (1999): Ps showed better-than-average for easy tasks like ability to get along with others, written expression, spoken expression and leadership * Ps showed worse-than-average for hard tasks like art, sales, acting, mechanics * The more difficult a domain, the more likely we are to see ourselves as below average

Answer 83

* Assessed “integrative ability” using bogus test * Experimental manipulation: Ps either got a hard or easy test * Ps rated own ability compared with peers’ ability (0-99 percentile) * Predictions: * Easy test: Ps will see own ability as above average * Difficult test: Ps will see own ability as below average * Findings: * This is exactly what they found * Difficulty of test determined whether people saw themselves as better-than or worse-than-average

Answer 84

1) How do I compare to others? 2) Base-rate fallacy (case-based info about self automatically comes to mind -> we tend to cognitively prefer case-based info and ignore distribution info) 3) Anchor to case-based info and ignore info about others/base-rates 4) If domain feels easy -> better-than-average effect OR if domain feels hard -> worse-than-average effect

Answer 85

* Better adjustment to college * More adaptive coping and survival rates in HIV/AIDS patients * Higher subjective well-being * Higher achievement * More relationship satisfaction and commitment (people are more satisfied in their relationships when they see their partners through rose-coloured lenses and those who see them more realistically are less satisfied in their relationships) * Coping with challenges * Substantive evidence that these positive illusions are good

Answer 86

* More boasting -> consequently, alienate others (irritating when talking to someone who thinks they're great at everything), which leads to loneliness in the long run * Interfere with taking sensible medical precautions * Set unrealistically high goals, leading to frequent failure and, consequently, poorer well-being * Or, no reason to self-improve and, consequently, miss opportunities to advance skills

Answer 87

* 200 studies with more than 10,000 participants * Positive illusions about self are good for personal adjustment: higher subjective well-being and lower feelings of depression * Positive illusions have mixed effects for relationships: 1. How long you know someone matters * Self-enhancement linked with more liking by strangers, but no association for longer-term relationships 2. Type of traits you self-enhance on matters * Self-enhancement on collectivistic traits were seen as more likeable/warm * Self-enhance on individualistic traits (independence, power, achievement) seen as more competent but also less likeable/warm

Answer 88

* Positive illusions are associated with people feeling good about themselves * When interacting with strangers, it’s helpful to come across as confident * Matters less with people one knows better * If want to come across as likable, enhance collectivistic traits * If want to come across as competent, enhance individualistic traits

Answer 89

* Our search for self-knowledge is guided by a few self-evaluation motives: * Self-assessment * Self-enhancement * Self-verification

Answer 90

* Motive to confirm our existing self-views * Leads to wanting others to view us the way we see ourselves

Answer 91

* We're looking for predictability which can be done in 2 ways 1. Epistemic (relating to knowledge): fulfills need for coherence * Stable self-views provide people with a powerful sense of predictability and control to experience * Ex: religions provide clear frameworks 2. Pragmatic: Ensures smooth social interactions * Stable self-views foster consistent and predictable behaviour * Predictable behaviour allows others to know what to expect from one another, thus fostering smooth social interactions * Others respond to us predictably which further stabilizes behaviour

Answer 92

- 2 different ways: 1) Creating social environments - Displaying identity cues - Selective interaction - Interpersonal prompts 2) Cognitive biases - Selective attention - Selective memory - Selective interpretation

Answer 93

* The use of symbols, appearance, or communication styles to signal to one’s self-concept to others * Increases the likelihood of getting feedback consistent with our self-views * Increases the chances that others will see the person the way they see themselves * Ex: clothing or high school stereotypes of various cliques

Answer 94

* People prefer to interact with others that see them in a way that is consistent with the way they see themselves, even if it’s negative * This is also the case if someone's self-concept is negative

Answer 95

* Do people prefer to interact with people that like them or that see them the way they see themselves? * Method: Getting acquainted study * Participants had to choose an interaction partner for 2-3 hour conversation * Allowed to see evaluations of them made by two potential interaction partners * Recruited high and low self-esteem participants (this is directly hitting the self-verification and self-enhancement motives) * High self-esteem: self-enhancement and self-verification motives align * Low self-esteem: self-enhancement (being seen positively) and self-verification (being seen negatively) motives are in conflict * Who do you want to interact with? * Findings: * Suggests that people prefer to interact with others that verify their self-views vs people that like them, but see them differently than they see themselves * For the high self esteem people, they disproportionality chose the favourable view of them * The majority of people with low self-esteem preferred to interact with the person that viewed them negatively * Suggests that when these 2 motives are in conflict with each other, people prefer to interact with people who have the same views of them that they have for themselves

Answer 96

* Evaluated what views they had of themselves and how their partners viewed them * Spouses report greatest relationship intimacy when their partner shares their self-views, even if these self-views are negative * People tend to withdraw from relationships where their partner doesn’t verify their self-views * People that had a negative view of themselves felt the most satisfied and closest to their partner when the partner had a negative view of them * Even if person has positive self-esteem, but their partner has extremely positive view of them * Roommates also prefer roommates that share their self-views, even if negative

Answer 97

* People behave in ways that elicits self-verifying feedback * Explicitly asking confirmation of self-view * Guiding conversations that elicits self-verifying responses * Behaviours often lead to self-fulfilling prophecies * Ex: socially awkward -> avoiding social situations -> reinforces view of self as awkward * Sometimes, it happens that people don't view us the same way that we view ourselves * This can lead people to reject others who don't view them in that way or double down in ways to overly emphasize the way they view themselves

Answer 98

* Receiving feedback inconsistent with self-views is threatening (there's research evidence of this) * People compensate for this threat by using symbols and behaviors that signal this identity to others and themselves * Intensifying behaviour consistent with this identity * We work even harder to signal to the person who we truly are * Becoming more confident in one’s self-view

Answer 99

* Method: * Participants rated themselves on dominance vs submission * Played a game with a confederate * Experimental manipulation: * Consistent feedback (ex: dominants received feedback that they’re quite dominant) * Discrepant feedback (ex: dominants received feedback that they’re quite submissive) * Judges rated behaviour during follow-up interaction with confederate * Results: People responded to feedback that challenged their self-view by amplifying behaviour consistent with self-view * People who were dominant amplified their dominance in response to the discrepant feedback * And those who were submissive amplified their submissiveness in response to the discrepant feedback * Suggests that we try to prove to others that we are a certain way rather than accept their feedback * In the face of contradictory feedback, we double down and really try to prove what we're like

Answer 100

* What happens when important identity is threatened? * Method: recruited heterosexual male journalism students * Experimental manipulation: * Confirm: “You fit the ideal profile of being a journalist” * Threat: “You don’t fit the ideal profile of being a journalist” * Met attractive female undergraduate “Debbie” * Experimental manipulation: * Debbie likes “modest guys” or * Debbie likes “guys who think they’re great” * Described themselves to Debbie: “How capable do you think you are in journalism in comparison to other students?” * Ideal condition guys (you fit ideal) could adapt according to Debbie's interests * Evidence that people try to reinforce threatened identity by becoming more confident in self-view, even if they know that this behaviour will be seen negatively *Those who were told that they don't fit the ideal completely abandoned their goal of wooing Debbie and instead tried to reaffirm their view of themselves as ideal journalism candidates

Answer 101

* Selective attention: We pay more attention to feedback that confirms our self-views * Selective memory: We tend to have a better memory for feedback that confirms self-views * Likeable people more likely to remember feedback that they were likeable * Dislikeable people more likely to remember feedback that they were dislikeable * Selective interpretation: We are likely to interpret ambiguous feedback as consistent with self-views * High self-esteem people tend to remember feedback as more positive than it was and low self-esteem people tend to remember feedback as more negative than it was

Answer 102

* Men and women equally engage in self-verification * Self-verification appears to be present cross-culturally, but the specific ways in which it manifests may be different * Ex: East Asians are more likely to seek verification on contextualized self-views (self-views specific to one situation or relationship) and less inclined to seek verification of more global attributes * Ex: if they perceive themselves as kind in relationship with person A then they care more about being perceived as kind by person A

Answer 103

* Self-views are resistant to change * Cognitive biases may explain why people’s self-perceptions don’t line up with the perceptions that others have of them (looking glass) * It's not enough to give people evidence that what they think of themselves is not true * Generally, self-verification is adaptive because it makes perceptions of the world predictable, thus increasing psychological comfort * Self-verification is helpful interpersonally (facilitates social interactions) * Research with spouses * In the workplace, people feel more connected to colleagues that verify their self-views and tend to be more productive * But, if people have unrealistically, negative self-views, self-verification may be harmful * Often results in choosing relationship partners that treat the person badly, thus reinforcing their negative self-views * Helps explain why people with low self-esteem tend to stay with relationship partners that treat them badly

Answer 104

1) Self-verification - Focus: consistency and stability - Preferred feedback: feedback that confirm self- views, even if negative 2) Self-assessment - Focus: accuracy - Preferred feedback: feedback that is objective, even if it contradicts self-views 3) Self-enhancement - Focus: positivity and esteem - Preferred feedback: feedback that makes the self look good, even if inaccurate * In most circumstances, people prioritize self-enhancement (#1 self-enhancement, #2 self-verification, #3 self-assessment) * Most of the time we prefer to see ourselves positively and want others to see us positively * Self-assessment is only prioritized when the stakes are low (ex: buzzfeed quiz) or when accurate information is critical for decision-making (ex: career-aptitude test)

Answer 105

* The circumstances under which self-verification vs self-enhancement is preferred depends on: 1) The kind of information that is accessible * Self-verification: relies on controlled, cognitive processing * Self-enhancement: relies on more automatic, emotional processing * Thus, people prefer self-enhancement: * Under conditions of cognitive load * When in a hurry * Sometimes results in a cognitive-affective crossfire (low self-esteem people who chose to interact with negative evaluator are suggested to be torn and ambivalent about who to choose and want a perceptive evaluator) 2) Centrality of self-view * For central, firmly held self-views, people tend to reject feedback that contradicts self-view, even if the feedback is positive * Ex: Low self-esteem people choosing negative evaluator * Ex: Journalism students study * For less central, uncertain self-views, people are more accepting of feedback from others that is in contrast with self-view 3) Length of relationship * People tend to seek more self-verifying (vs self-enhancing) feedback in long term relationships * In short-term social interactions, people tend to prefer self-enhancement * But evidence of strategic self-verification * Even people with negative self-views seek more positive feedback on relationship relevant qualities (ex: attractiveness) * But tend to seek self-verifying information on non-relationship relevant qualities (ex: intelligence, artistic ability)

Answer 106

* Conflict between cognition and emotion * Cognitively, people seek self-verifying feedback to maintain a consistent sense of self * Emotionally, people seek self-enhancing feedback to boost mood and self-esteem * Ex: Love bombing: when you're first dating someone they're showering you with lots of affection and praise and it feels good * However, cognitively people are realizing this person is going too quick * Generally, people will try to avoid this crossfire, but when it happens, will tend to choose self-verification

Answer 107

* Sense of belonging to at least 2 or more cultural groups (ex: Polish Canadian) * Often experienced by: * Immigrants (and children of immigrants) * Ethnic minorities * Indigenous peoples

Answer 108

* Very common to a multicultural identity * Process of learning and cultural change that stems from balancing two cultures while adapting to the prevailing culture of the society * Evidence of acculturation on a psychological level * Ex: Emotional acculturation (researchers have observed this at an emotional level)

Answer 109

* Study of 915 immigrant women from Eastern Europe and Caribbean living in USA compared to USA-born non-immigrant women * They compared what their emotional and psychological experience was compared to women born in the USA * Eastern Europe: has more ethos of emotional suppression * Results: Longer amount of time they had spent in USA, the more they fit mainstream American emotional norms (r = 0.11) * More expressivity and less inhibition of emotions

Answer 110

* How well does each immigrant generations’ emotional experience fit with characteristic majority culture pattern? * Compared emotional fit between Turks and Belgians * This study was done in both Turkey and Belgium (primarily in Belgium) * Turkish people in Turkey (“Turkish majority”) * 1st generation Turkish immigrants (they themselves had immigrated) in Belgium * 2nd generation Turkish immigrants (their parents immigrated) in Belgium * Belgians in Belgium (“Belgian majority”) * Assessed “emotional fit” (how much does that group's emotional experience fit the Belgian norms) by: * Self-report on typical Belgian emotional experiences questionnaire * Average Belgian emotional experiences for each group * Compare Turkish majority and immigrants’ scores to Belgian majority * They were able to calculate 4 group averages * Results: More contact a generation has with Belgian culture, more emotional acculturation * The Belgian majority fit the Belgian norm most * Turkish majority least like Belgians emotionally * 2nd generation Turkish immigrants statistically indistinguishable from Belgians * With each successive generation (each group that had more and more contact with Belgian culture) the more they fit the Belgian norm -> the more contact the person has with the culture, the more likely they are to adapt to it * Evidence of emotional acculturation from one generation to the next

Answer 111

* Minority individuals seem to become more psychologically similar to majority culture individuals * Can new culture and heritage culture co-exist?

Answer 112

* Multicultural individuals’ cognitive, emotional, and behavioural reactions are context specific * Depend on which cultural identity is activated by the situation * It seems that we can maintain both cultures

Answer 113

* Examined 2nd generation Turkish immigrants’ emotional experience in Belgium * Results: * Work/school: emotions statistically more consistent with characteristic Belgian pattern * Home: emotions fit characteristic Belgian and Turkish patterns equally well * Suggests that multicultural individuals flexibly shift behaviour to fit culture that’s most salient in a situation

Answer 114

* Do multicultural individuals engage in cultural frame-switching in their self-descriptions? * Method: Recruited European-Canadian and Chinese born students at a Canadian university * Wrote open-ended self-description: “Describe what you’re like as a person” * Coded writing for references to others and collective self-statement * Questionnaire assessing agreement with Chinese cultural views * Experimental manipulation for Chinese students: * Study done in Chinese or study done in English (randomly assigned Chinese students to either do the study in English or in Chinese) * Language acting as a cultural prime * European Canadians all did study in English * Findings: * Chinese participants’ self-descriptions are more characteristically Chinese when answering in Chinese than in English * For those completing the study in Chinese, they're more likely to endorse Chinese views, reference others, and make collective statements * This indicates that being exposed to Euro-Canadian culture and completing the study in English had enough of an effect on Chinese participants to have more individualistic views

Answer 115

* Even though multicultural individuals undergo acculturation, their heritage cultural identity and mainstream cultural identity can co-exist * Can flexibly shift between cultural selves depending on which is most salient * This is often not done strategically and is instead much more automatic * Cultural frame switching is an example of the working self-concept

Answer 116

1) Integration: participate in mainstream culture and hold onto heritage identity - High in maintaining heritage cultural identity and participation and identification with mainstream culture 2) Separation: hold onto heritage identity, avoid mainstream culture - High in maintaining heritage cultural identity - Low in participation and identification with mainstream culture 3) Assimilation: participate in mainstream culture, give up heritage identity - Low in maintaining heritage cultural identity - High in participation and identification with mainstream culture 4) Marginalization: not participating in mainstream or heritage culture - Low in maintaining heritage cultural identity and participation and identification with mainstream culture

Answer 117

* Which multicultural identity strategy a person adopts depends on: * To what extent are they encouraged to hang on to heritage identity by larger society and/or family * How much exposure do they have to the mainstream culture (ex: where do they live? -> Italian immigrant moving to little Italy may not have as much exposure to the mainstream culture) * How similar is the heritage identity to the mainstream identity * These multicultural identities may not feel as much as a choice as there are all sorts of factors that'll influence whether someone identifies with the mainstream culture or their cultural heritage

Answer 118

* Method: study of immigrant youth from 26 different cultural backgrounds and living in 13 different countries * Assessed multicultural identity strategy * Psychological adaptation: degree of life satisfaction, self-esteem, and mental health issues * Sociocultural adaptation: school and behaviour problems (ex: dropping out of school, substance use) * Findings: * Integration strategy most common (Integration = 36%, separation = 23%, marginalization = 22%, assimilation = 19%) * Integration strategy more common the longer a person lives in the mainstream/“new” culture * People born in or who had lived 12+ years in new culture showed integration strategy 2x more than people who had lived in new culture for less than 6 years * Integration associated with best psychological and sociocultural adaptation, marginalization associated with the worst adaptation * Separation associated with better psychological adjustment than assimilation, but similar sociological adaptation

Answer 119

* People are more reluctant to give up heritage cultural identity * Choose separation (23%) over assimilation (19%) * Giving up heritage identity (assimilation or marginalization) associated with poorer psychological adjustment than not identifying with mainstream culture (separation) * Suggests that multicultural individuals should be encouraged to retain their heritage cultural identity as well as establish close ties with new culture (integration)

Answer 120

* Cultural groups extend beyond ethnicity, nationality, and race * Independence: West, Global North, men, high SES, businesses, liberal religious groups, and coasts * Interdependence: East, Global South, women, low SES, governments, conservative religious groups, and heartlands (center of countries) * Means that there are a lot of individual differences in a person’s social orientation even within a country * A person’s social orientation towards independent or interdependence will depend on: * Their mix of cultures * What is salient in a given context

Answer 121

* Method: examined 51 years of data on individualistic values and practices across 78 countries * Results: found that individualism is on the rise in most countries (seems to be globally on the rise) * Overtime across these countries, people were more likely to live alone, less likely to personally take care of elderly relatives, less emphasis on family, increased importance of teaching children independence, increased preference for self-expression, also more likely to get divorced overtime * Canada became more individualistic overtime and China became less individualistic overtime (outlier) * Socioeconomic development was the biggest predictor of increased individualism (mediator for the relationship between time and individualism) * There was a positive association between time and socioeconomic development * As time went on, countries tended to move in a more socioeconomic development sense

Answer 122

- “Culture is a loosely integrated system of ideas, practices, and social institutions that enable coordination of behaviour in a population” - Often when we talk about culture, we're talking about ethnicities and nationalities

Answer 123

Individualistic Cultures: * Common in Western countries * Prioritizing the individual via self-interest and self-expression * Driver of behaviour are internal states (own thoughts, feelings, desires) Collectivistic Cultures: * Common in East Asian countries * Prioritizing the group and group harmony via suspension of self-interest * Drivers of behaviour are external factors (duties, responsibilities, norms, others’ expectations)

Answer 124

Individualistic Cultures: * Fosters an independent self-concept * Distinguishing self from others by focusing on what makes one unique from others * Focus on personal identity (ex: traits, abilities, interests) * Ex: extroverted (non-relational term) * The characteristics for ingroup or outgroup will be more fluid Collectivistic Cultures * Fosters an interdependent self-concept * Fitting self with others by focusing on aspects of identity that make one similar to close others and collective * Focus on social roles and the self in relation to others * Ex: daughter (relational term) * The characteristics that define an ingroup and outgroup will be more clear due to higher overlap in attributes

Answer 125

* Important function of culture is to provide guidance (a set of guidelines and norms) for what is normal and how to be a person * Provides a recipe * This is transmitted by institutions (ex: school, government) which shape how people interact with each other which then shape individuals * We internalize this guidance and in doing so, this shapes our self-concept * What are the characteristics of the social group I value? -> Self- stereotyping -> Validation by others that I’m a good member of the group

Answer 126

Individualistic Culture: * Mothers teach infants early on to spend time on their own (toys, pacifiers and blankets are common objects for babies to learn how to soothe themselves) * Babies are expected to start sleeping alone without parents starting at 3 months * Emotional self-expression is encouraged * Babies are encouraged to smile and to make positive vocalizations Collectivistic Culture: * Mothers teach infants early on that obedience and respect are important * Co-sleeping for the first couple years of life (in a crib or maybe even in own room) * Conversations with children are directive and instructional and obedience is praised

Answer 127

* The way people in a culture historically made a living influences culture * Farming cultures are more interdependent * Many people have to work on one field because farming is extremely labour intensive and covers lots of ground * To be a successful farmer, you can't do it by yourself * You have to learn to collaborate * People have to share the harvest of farming for the rest of the year as they all worked on it together * Eastern cultures = traditionally farming culture * Herding and fishing cultures are more independent * Food is more consistent and less reliant on the weather so have to negotiate and cooperate with others less * Herders rely on working with others less * Can move if conflict arises * Western cultures = traditionally herding culture

Answer 128

* People from different cultures may be thinking about the world and perceiving the world differently Individualistic Cultures * Analytic thinking: * Focus on individual components of a situation/object * Attention directed at specific details rather than context * Reasoning relies on categorization and logic * Ex: American children put the chicken and cow together because focus on category Collectivistic Cultures Holistic thinking: * Focus on the whole and the relationship between parts * Attention to broader patterns and the context * Reasoning relies on experience and detecting patterns * Chinese children put the cow and grass together because focus on relationship

Answer 129

* People sit in front of this tube and down the tube they see this white line which is moving and rotating, as well as the structure (square) * P has to tell experimenter stop when they think the white line is vertical * Degree to which a person’s perception is affected by the context or surrounding environment (“field”) * Field dependent: more affected by context/environment * Field independent: less affected by context/environment * East Asians are more field dependent

Answer 130

* Causal attribution: Why did this happen? Who (what) is responsible? * Hypothesis: North Americans and East Asians should attribute responsibility differently * North Americans should be more likely to attribute responsibility to the individual * East Asians should be more likely to attribute responsibility to the social collective or situation * Studied Attribution of responsibility in newspapers * Analyzed articles about “rogue trader” scandals reported in American vs. Japanese newspapers * Counted # references to individual (disposition) vs. organization (situation) as responsible for scandal * Findings: * American newspapers more likely to attribute responsibility to individuals (disposition) * Japanese newspapers more likely to attribute responsibility to organizations (situation)

Answer 131

Western Cultures * More emotionally expressive * Value maximizing positive experiences and minimizing negative experiences * Emphasis on socially disengaging emotions : * Emotions that focus on self and distinctiveness (ex: pride, feeling superior, frustration, self-esteem) * More important for happiness (vs socially engaging emotions) * Suppressing emotions is distressing and can lead to negative mental and physical health outcomes * Personal expression is valued Eastern Cultures * More emotionally restrained * Value a balance of positive and negative emotional states * Emphasis on socially engaging emotions: * Emotions related to fitting in and connecting with others (ex: wanting to feel close, respect for others, guilt, shame) * More important for happiness (vs socially disengaging emotions) * Suppressing emotions may not lead to negative mental and physical health outcomes * Emotional restraint is valued

Answer 132

* 1983 - The Rise of John Vasconcellos * He suffered from Impostor Syndrome * From meeting Carl Rogers, he became interested in self-esteem * 1986 – Task Force (team of professors from the state of California) to Promote Self-Esteem and Personal and Social Responsibility * 1990 – “Toward A State Of Self-Esteem” Report released

Answer 133

* High SE correlates with: * Happiness * Productivity * Success * The State Budget (high SE balanced the state budget) * Low SE correlates with: * Crime * Teen pregnancy * Pollution * “All of societies ills can be explained by an epidemic of low self-esteem”

Answer 134

* Explosion of interest in raising people's self-esteem * Self-help books * A lot of this is thanks to Vasconcellos * However, people started pointing at the possibility that the claim that self-esteem is this end all be all is a bit ridiculous

Answer 135

1) Measuring self-esteem 2) Correlation vs causation 3) Conflicting Research 4) Researcher bias * Baumeister was very concerned with the methodology used in this report * Baumeister wrote about this in his “Exploding the Self-Esteem Myth” write-up

Answer 136

* Initial critique was the issue of measuring self-esteem * Lots of different scales, definitions, and types of self-esteem * “Many scales are available for measuring self-esteem, and different investigations have used different ones, which compounds the difficulty of comparing results from different investigations (especially if the results are inconsistent). Blascovich and Tomaka (1991) reviewed multiple measures and found them of uneven quality, giving high marks to only a few (such as Fleming & Courtney's, 1984, revision of Janis & Field's, 1959, scale, and Rosenberg's, 1965, global self-esteem measure)” - Baumeister (2003)

Answer 137

- William James a long time ago provided a good definition - “Our self-feeling in this world depends entirely on what we back ourselves to be and do. It is determined by the ratio of our actualities to our supposed potentialities; a fraction of which our pretensions are the denominator and the numerator our success" - Self-esteem = Success / Pretensions - "Such a fraction may be increased as well by diminishing the denominator as by increasing the numerator”

Answer 138

1) State vs Trait: * State self-esteem: current feelings about the self * Trait self-esteem: typical level of self-esteem across situations (more personality or dispositional self-esteem) 2) Global vs Specific: * Global self-esteem: how the individual values the self generally * Specific self-esteem: self-evaluation in specific areas of life that fluctuates 3) Implicit vs Explicit: * Implicit self-esteem: unconscious evaluations of the self (unfakeable - not a lot of studies on this) * Explicit self-esteem: conscious evaluations of the self

Answer 139

* High Trait Self-Esteem: * Use confidence-building strategies * Strive to stand out in social situations * Low Trait Self-Esteem: * Use protective self-presentation * Seek to fit in * High on rejection-sensitivity * One study on low self-esteem individuals in relationships found that if you gave them abstract feedback vs specific feedback, they were more likely to prefer abstract feedback

Answer 140

* Little differences in SE before the age of 8 (Harter et al., 2006) * Following adolescence, SE gradually rises and peaks ~60 before declining ~70 (Robins et al., 2002)

Answer 141

* Individual differences in SE relate to interpersonal strategies * Most people are pretty solid in their SE * Midlife is when you're pretty solidified in your social roles * 60 is when your social life and other aspects of your life start to erode * Orth (2018) longitudinal study from ages 8-27 * Main findings: quality of home environment at age 8 seemed to be important (ex: quality of parenting, cognitive stimulation, physical home environment) * This seemed to predict SE up until the age of 27 and beyond

Answer 142

- SE is highest in children between 9-12 and ~60 yr old adults - Then dramatically decreases from 12-20 - Then slowly goes up until ~60 where it then dramatically goes down until death - Women generally have lower levels of SE than men throughout development

Answer 143

* Is self-esteem reliably causing certain outcomes? * Or is self-esteem simply correlated with some outcomes? * What are the antecedents of self-esteem? * We need a theory of self-esteem to explore these questions (ex: Self-Verification Theory, Dominance Theory, Terror Management Theory or Sociometer Theory)

Answer 144

Functions to confirm whether we're aligning with how we see ourselves

Answer 145

* Functions to signal dominance and status in a social group and to measure our status * Evidence shows that not everyone uses this

Answer 146

Acts as an existential buffer to death and suffering

Answer 147

* Fundamental desire is to be accepted and belong to groups * SE is a measure of our ‘relational value’ * SE is not a need but rather the output of a system that monitors and responds to events through acceptance/rejection

Answer 148

- Hierometer theory: status is tracked by (indicative function) self-esteem and narcissism which regulate (imperative function) assertiveness to match status - Sociometer theory: inclusion tracked by (indicative function) self-esteem regulates (imperative function) affiliativeness to avoid exclusion

Answer 149

* Does acceptance and rejection impact state self-esteem? * Groups of 5 completed self-description questionnaires with other participants * Ps then received bogus feedback that they had either been assigned to work with others or work alone * Told assignment was either based on preferences of others or a random procedure * Findings: * Not being chosen for the group significantly lowered state self-esteem, whereas being excluded for a random reason had no effect * A 2009 meta-analysis found rejection resulted in lower self-esteem (effect size of .30)

Answer 150

* How does SE respond to a wider range of feedback beyond rejection and acceptance? * Sociometer is best at detecting subtle differences in treatment * When people received neutral or rejection feedback, self-esteem stayed low

Answer 151

* Do some people have SE that is immune to social influence? * Findings suggest no

Answer 152

* Does trait self-esteem also reflects people’s perceived relational value? * Yes, trait self-esteem correlates highly with people’s perceptions of the degree to which they are valued, accepted, and supported by others

Answer 153

1) High SE makes people physically attractive * Diener & Wolsic (1995) found no significant correlation between ratings of attractiveness and SE, but self-reported physical attractiveness was strongly related to SE 2) High SE leads to improved academic performance * Skaalvik and Hagtvet (1990) found that doing well in school one year led to higher SE the next year, whereas high SE did not lead to performing well in school * High global self-esteem in grade 6 predicted lower academic achievement in grade 7 * SE doesn't seem to be a strong measure since we're getting these mixed findings 3) High SE improves job performance * Weak positive correlations between job performance and SE * If High SE consistently improved performance in lab tasks, this would be easy to demonstrate 4) High SE results in social success * “The evidence suggests that the superior social skills and interpersonal successes of people with high SE exist mainly in their own minds. People with high SE claim to be more popular and socially skilled than others, but objective measures generally fail to confirm this and in some cases point in the opposite direction.” (Baumeister, 2003) * There's quite a lot of studies that indicate that high SE individuals can sometimes be jerks in social situations because they have blinders on during their interactions and this can impact how people feel when interacting with them and erode relationships * One exception: social initiative -> the tendency to initiate interpersonal contact * Buhrmester et al (1988) found high SE predicts speaking up and taking social initiative * These were found to not generally be reliable as findings

Answer 154

- The Dark Side of SE - SE and aggression, narcissism, social problems - Contingencies of self-worth

Answer 155

* Theory that low SE leads to aggression and hostility * BUT troubling link between high SE and aggression in past research * AND low SE individuals are less likely to take risks and stand out * ALSO unable to find any book or article that supports theory that low SE leads to aggression

Answer 156

1) Criminals * Consistent findings suggest strong relationship between assaults and ego-threats * High (but unstable) SE reliably predicts violent offenses (through ego threats) * “Violence is produced by a combination of favorable self-appraisals with situational and other factors” 2) Group differences * Men have higher SE and are more violent than women * Depressed people have low SE and are less violent than control * “Inflated favorable views of self” exhibited a high rate of antisocial behaviour (ex: unmitigated agency or lack of regard for others) (Colvin, Block, and Funder 1995)

Answer 157

* High SE becomes an all-encompassing need * Grandiosity and sense of entitlement * Pursued through achieving power and status * Often linked to social problems * Ex: “Unmitigated agency” (agency with little concern for communion and strong emphasis on goals of power and status) – David Bakan * Ex: Hostility, aggression, mood swings * Grandiose vs Vulnerable (Pierro, Mattavelli & Gallucci, 2016): * Found positive association between grandiose narcissism (NG) and explicit self-esteem * Found negative association between vulnerable narcissism (NV) and explicit self-esteem * Found no correlation between NG/NV and implicit self-esteem * Idea that narcissism is people with low SE just masking it

Answer 158

* Extreme social outcomes involved in high and low SE * High SE predicts both perpetrators of bullying and those who stand up to bullies (Salmivalli et al., 1999) * High SE predicted those most-likely and least-likely to cheat (Lobel and Levanon., 1988) * “Although further research is needed, one impression that emerges from this data is that self-esteem simply intensifies both prosocial and antisocial tendencies” (Baumeister, 2003) * High SE may enhance our social tendencies (both prosocial and antisocial) * SE enhancement programs could risk negative outcomes because even if there's a directional relationship we don't know if that's positive or negative

Answer 159

* People tie self-esteem to success in specific domains (external things that they don't have control over) * Where they ‘stake’ their self-worth * Ex: academic, relational, physical * Motivational trade-off: * Increased drive but higher emotional vulnerability * Focus on ‘proving oneself’ can undermine learning and relationships (ex: inability to focus on the present and instead always thinking about the next move) * Ex: contingencies of self-worth in academic success (adolescents are particularly vulnerable) * Impact of contingencies: adolescents are vulnerable to contingencies of self-worth * SE tied to specific domains relates to fluctuations and vulnerability to stressors

Answer 160

* Ps self-reported on the extent of their self-worth across 4 domains * Found higher reliance on external validation predicts future depressive symptoms * Diathesis of social domain contingencies + social stressors predicting depressive symptoms

Answer 161

* Vasconcellos had his political career tied to his theory that increasing self-esteem will improve society as captured in this quote that was put out in the media quite often: * Task Force: “The correlational findings are very positive and compelling...” * But if you continue reading the book, you find this quote: ”...the association between self-esteem and its expected consequences are mixed, insignificant or absent” * Seems like the task force was also aware of how muddy these findings were * Full audio recording September 1988 Task Force meeting: “These correlational findings are really pretty positive, pretty compelling...In other areas, the correlations don’t seem to be so great, and we’re not quite sure why. And we’re not sure, when we have correlations, what the causes might be” * This is very ambiguous and hopeless * Andrew Mecca was another politician involved in the report and when presented with mixed findings, he stated: “I didn’t care...I thought it was beyond science. It was a leap of faith. And I think only a blind idiot wouldn’t believe that self-esteem isn’t central to one’s character and health and vitality.” * Overall data in study was misinterpreted and greatly exaggerated to fit researcher expectations

Answer 162

* Benefits of high SE: * Initiative (can motivate people a bit more) * Feeling good * Limits of high SE: * Potential link to violence and aggression * May be an outcome rather than antecedent * Does not necessarily correlate with success

Answer 163

* Fragile: * Can be high but fluctuates * Attached to contingent domains * Ex: criminals and offenders * Stable: * Trying to increase your awareness and understanding of yourself * Why this was probably more impactful for adolescents * Rarely fluctuates * Stable low SE associated with low SCC (Campbell et al.,1996) * Stable high SE associated with high SCC (Kernis, Paradise, et al., 2000) * “Individuals with stable high self-esteem are the masters of their psychological domain” * ”Healthy Self-Esteem”

Answer 164

* Kernis * Distinct from high SE * SE that's derived from a sense of authenticity * Authenticity: awareness, unbiased processing, action, and relation * Relates optimal SE to authenticity * ”Non-contingent self-esteem”: * Richard Ryan writes about non-contingent self-esteem * Self-as-process (self as dynamic) vs self-as-object * Tapping into self-as-process could result in more optimal SE * SE is not salient -> the less salient your SE is, the more you're experiencing positive outcomes * Successes and failures do not implicate self-worth * Paths to Optimal Self-Esteem: * Mindfulness * Flow activities * Increased SCC

Answer 165

* The perception of oneself as morally and adaptively good * We all have a need for self-integrity and to maintain adequate self-esteem

Answer 166

- The perception of an environmental challenge to one’s self-integrity - Ex: getting a bad grade or a bad performance review at work, failing to achieve other important goals (ex: sports related), health scares or medical conditions (especially if a result of our negative habits), conflict with partner or friend or rejection, parents being embarrassing, favourite sports team losing, intergroup conflict - Many things can be a threat to our self-integrity

Answer 167

* Negative, hostile, or distorted reaction to anything bad about the self to protect self-integrity * We often engage in all sorts of defensive reactions * Examples: * Denial and minimization * Compensatory conviction (doubling down on beliefs or behaviours to defend identity) * Symbolic self-completion * Self-serving bias * Blaming others * Rationalization (justifying actions to make them seem more acceptable) * Avoidance * Aggression

Answer 168

* Benefit: allow us to maintain positive self-views and restore self-integrity * Limitations: get in the way of learning from the challenge/setback * Sometimes we get feedback that's useful

Answer 169

* We're motivated to maintain self-integrity, thus when this integrity is threatened, we're motivated to repair it * We can repair self-integrity by engaging in self-affirmation (an act that demonstrates one’s adequacy) * Key principles: 1) We're motivated to maintain overall, global self-integrity (in any one specific domain or any one particular self-aspect) rather than integrity in a specific domain * Means that self-integrity is flexible and we can affirm a role or identity in a domain unrelated to the threat to repair self-integrity * This idea is very similar to self-complexity * If people are very low in this, threats to an area of their life will have a much more meaningful and negative impact in their self-esteem, as compared to people with high self-complexity 2) Our motive is to be “good enough”, rather than excellent/superior * Self-affirmation needs to only foster a sense of adequacy in a personally valued domain, not a perception of overall excellence 3) Self-integrity is maintained/restored by demonstrating integrity through meaningful acts or reminders of such acts * Praising oneself in the absence of “evidence” will not work (empty self-affirmation)

Answer 170

- Roles (ex: student, parent) - Values (ex: humour, religion) - Group identities (ex: race, culture, nation) - Central beliefs (ex: ideology, political beliefs) - Goals (ex: health, academic success) - Relationships (ex: family, friends)

Answer 171

* Accomplishments that lead to praise (ex: an award) * Engaging in meaningful activities (ex: taking care of pet) * Reflecting on personal values and strengths (most often used in research settings -> Ps are asked to identify and write an essay about important values) * Examples of core values: leadership, generosity, excellence, simplicity, creativity, community, wisdom, harmony

Answer 172

* Both symbolic self-completion and self-affirmation help people cope with self-threats: * Symbolic self-completion: engaging in activities that will bolster the specific self-aspect that was threatened (“complete” the threatened identity) * Usually defensive and involves superficial signals to prove the threatened self-aspect * More likely if the threatened domain is central to self-concept * Self-affirmation: we compensate for threats to the self by engaging in activities that will bolster our global sense of self-integrity * More likely if the threatened domain is less central * If a person is not getting the feedback that they want of themselves (ex: feedback that's threatening), self-affirmation can help * Self-affirmation can reduce the need for symbolic self-completion

Answer 173

* Self-affirmation lifts barriers to learning from threat by: * Buffering against threat (self-affirmations reassure people that they have integrity and help them to see themselves in a broader way) * Reducing defensiveness and actually confronting the feedback in the threat and learning from it

Answer 174

1. Stereotype threat in education * Self-affirmation can improve minority students’ academic outcomes 2. Prejudice as a reaction to self-threat * Self-affirmation reduces stereotyping of outgroup members 3. Mortality salience and worldview protection * Self-affirmation eliminates defensive worldview protection when confronted with own mortality

Answer 175

* When individuals fear that they will confirm a negative stereotype about their social group, which leads to increased anxiety, reduced performance, and disengagement/withdrawal from the domain * Helps explain why students from minority groups show an achievement gap compared to students from majority groups * Ex: Research shows that when race is emphasized before a test, minority students perform worse than when race is not mentioned

Answer 176

* Can self-affirmation reduce the achievement gap of minority students by reducing stereotype threat? * Method: Longitudinal study in White and Latino middle school students * Examining the academic performance of these students * Completed experimental manipulation 4x over the school year before a test * Experimental manipulation (randomly assigned to 2 groups): * Self-affirmation group: write about a particular value that is most important to you * Control group: write about why a particular value that is not important to you may be important to someone else * Monitored GPAs * Results: Self-affirmation (vs. control) improved the GPA of minority students but not White students, thus closing the achievement gap * White Ps regardless of being in the affirmation or control condition didn't have a significant impact on their GPA performance * Closed the achievement gap by 22% in this study * Follow-up study showed that the benefits of the self-affirmation intervention persisted after 2 years * Suggests that self-affirmations can improve the academic performance of minority students * Replicated these findings with several other racial groups and women in STEM

Answer 177

Self-affirmation can create long lasting positive change by setting off a positive feedback loop between self-perceptions, positive outcomes, and the social environment

Answer 178

1. Self-affirmation leads to better GPA 2. Better GPA reinforces self-integrity 3. Because the students got a better GPA, teachers expect more of them in a good way 4. Higher expectations draw out better performance 5. Others reinforce self-integrity through positive feedback 6. The student alters the social world in ways other than through better outcomes, like asking for help and selecting challenging courses

Answer 179

* 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 * "Hurt people hurt people" * Hypothesis: Providing people with another way to self-affirm should reduce prejudicial attitudes

Answer 180

* 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 believe 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: * Threat to self led to prejudicial attitude against outgroup member (Jewish candidate) and subsequent increase in self-esteem * Difference in the group of participants that got the negative feedback * Elicited negative prejudice to Jewish candidate which would be considered as part of a minority group on the campus * Those who got the negative feedback and gave a negative/prejudiced evaluation of jewish candidate experienced an increase in their self-esteem * Threat to self led to prejudicial attitudes which increased self-esteem * Suggests that prejudice partly stems from a desire to restore a threatened self-integrity

Answer 181

* Method: Ps told they would complete 2-part study * Part 1: All participants threatened with negative feedback on intelligence test * Experimental manipulation: * Self-affirmation: Write about a particular value that is most important to you * Control: Write about why a particular value that is not important to you may be important to someone else * Part 2: “How employees evaluate candidates in hiring process” (same as their other study) * Findings: self-affirmation eliminated prejudicial attitudes

Answer 182

* We're all born in this existential conundrum: we all want to stay alive and all have knowledge that we're all going to die someday * Awareness that we will die some day creates terror and existential dread * To manage this terror, we cling to our cultural worldviews, self-esteem, and close relationships * Allow us to see ourselves as a person of value living in a meaningful world * Allow us to symbolically live forever * Ex: if a person is part of a culture and they die but the culture continues, then their spirit continues to live on in this way

Answer 183

* Mortality salience, being reminded of one’s mortality, leads to worldview protection (cling to cultural worldviews): * More negative evaluations of people that criticize culture and more positive evaluations of people that praise it * More ingroup bias * More aggression towards those that have a different worldview * Greater support for violent solutions to ethnic, religious, and international conflicts * Preference for less risky activities * Giving people reminders of their death which is seen as threatening leads us to behave in ways that are more rigid, dogmatic and prejudiced * There has been lots of research examining this

Answer 184

* Method: recruited American university students as participants * Mortality salience manipulation: * Mortality salience: Answered questions about own death * Control: Answered questions about dental pain * Affirmation manipulation: * Self-affirmation: Wrote about an important value * No affirmation: Wrote about less important value * Read and evaluated anti-American essay * Findings: * People who got the mortality salience condition rated this anti-American essay less favourably * Basic terror management effect: when people's death is made salient to them, they engage in worldview protection * Self-affirmation eliminated typical terror management defense strategy of derogating people that don’t share worldview * Suggesting that people became perhaps much more open and listen to potential criticisms

Answer 185

* A person’s internalized and evolving life story * Has many of the same elements as other narratives: * Beginning, middle, and imagined end (imagined future of how we think our life is going to go in the next few chapters and phases of our life) * Major events that determine plot * Heroes and villains * Not perfectly accurate, instead based on a selective and biased reconstruction of the past and imagined future * No one can possibly remember every single moment of their life * Narrative identity is deeply personal and highly subjective * “We’re more like novelists, than secretaries” * A work-in-progress: constantly shifting as we experience new situations * Made up of multiple life stories that make up our core/general life story and may be contradictory * Level 1: generalized life story * Level 2: contextualized life stories (ex: life story as student) that make up the general life story

Answer 186

1) Provides continuity and unity of the self: organizes the self in time by connecting the past, present, and future self * But total unity is not possible due to selective, biased reconstruction, new experiences, and contradictory life events * Rather, we do our best to unify our life, even if these efforts are incomplete and fallible 2) Meaning and purpose: a way to make sense of the events of one’s life * Ex: how did a person come to be who they are today? * People interpret similar events differently to fit their evolving narrative identity -> how people can be forming different narrative identities * 2 people having totally different interpretations of similar events and a 3rd person might not even remember this event at all and it may not be anything that's key or relevant to them and their lives

Answer 187

* We are each the storyteller/author writing the narrative of our lives * Storyteller = I * Narrative (the story we're telling, the product of the story time) = me

Answer 188

* Identity development begins in adolescence * Narrative identity doesn't come online until we're teenagers * This was first articulated by Eric Erikson: * 8 stages of life which consist of conflicts that need to be resolved * Stage of adolescence is where we see this question of identity popping up * Identity development begins in adolescence due to: * Societal expectations about forming an identity and figuring out who one is * Improvements in cognitive development * Not until we're adolescents that we have causal coherence: the ability to craft a causal narrative wherein events link together * Ex: there was a snowstorm and because of snowstorm there's a lot of cars on the road, and because of this there's lots of traffic and because of this I'm late * Causal coherence is necessary and fundamental for the construction of autobiographical narratives

Answer 189

* Parents shape narrative skills in children * Parents who use elaborated conversation style, focusing on causes in personal stories and underscoring emotion, tend to have kids who develop strong self-storytelling skills * As adults, our life narratives are edited and reinterpreted by talking with others * People are more likely to hold onto a personal story and to incorporate it into their more general understanding of who they are when important people in their life agree with the interpretation the story * The most important editors in our lives are the people who are closest to us

Answer 190

* Researchers conducting life story interviews * Ps are interviewed for 2-3 hrs about the story of their life * “Think about your life as if it were a book or novel. Imagine that the book has a table of contents containing the titles of the main chapters in the story. Give a brief plot summary of your story, going chapter by chapter.” * Provide a more detailed account of a few key scenes that stand out in the story (talk more about what that was, how they felt, how it impacted them): * High point * Low-point * Turning-point * Childhood memories * The next chapter in life * Stories are then coded for themes * Several Ps find this experience so meaningful and so engaging to tell the stories of their lives and find it so rewarding and enriching that they refuse payment

Answer 191

- Agency - Communion - Redemption - Contamination - Coherence

Answer 192

* The degree to which a person is able to affect change in their own lives or influence others in their environment, through demonstrations of self-mastery, empowerment, achievement, or status * Highly agentic stories focus on accomplishment and the ability to control one's fate * Ex: "I challenge myself to the limit academically, physically, and on my job. Since that time [of my divorce], I have accomplished virtually any goal I set for myself."

Answer 193

* The degree to which someone demonstrates or experiences interpersonal connection through love, friendship, dialogue, or connection to a broad collective * High communion stories emphasize intimacy, caring, and belongingness * Ex: "I was warm, surrounded by friends and positive regard that night. I felt unconditionally loved."

Answer 194

* Scenes in which a "bad" event leads to a clearly "good" or emotionally positive outcome * The initial negative state is "redeemed" or salvaged by the good that follows * Tends to frame the negative event as necessary for growth * Ex: the narrator describes the death of her father as reinvigorating closer emotional ties to her other family members

Answer 195

* Scenes in which a positive event turns bad, such that the negative affect overwhelms or erases the effects of the preceding positivity * Ex: the narrator is excited for a promotion at work but learns it came at the expense of his friend being fired

Answer 196

* Narratives with clear causal sequencing, thematic integrity, and appropriate integration of emotional responses * Narrative stories can vary in levels of coherence * Ex: Participant describes how being attacked by a dog as a child has led to his anxiety around letting his children adopt a pet

Answer 197

* Continuity and change in life stories * Associations with personality * Links with well-being

Answer 198

* 3 year longitudinal study asked university students to recall 10 key scenes from their life on 3 different occasions (baseline, 3 months later, and 3 years later) * Evidence for continuity: * Across the 3 time points, there were consistencies in the level of narrative complexity, agency, and positive emotional tone in the stories * Evidence for change: * Only 28% of memories described at T1 were repeated 3 months later (T2) and only 22% of the original memories were described 3 years later (T3) * At the end of the study (T3), young adults constructed stories that were more positive, emotionally nuanced, and showed greater personal understanding compared to the stories at T1 * They were coming up with largely different memories just 3 months later when asked about turning points, low points, or high points * Shows that how we narrate our lives changes as time goes on * What's meaningful now might not be as meaningful later on

Answer 199

* Compared to younger adults, older adults tend to construct life stories that are: * More complex and coherent (consistent with SCC findings where SCC gets higher as people reach middle age) * More positive in emotional tone * More summarized and less detailed * Suggests that as we get older, our life story becomes “warmer, fuzzier” and more integrated/meaningful

Answer 200

* McAdams & Pals' (2006) 3-part model of personality * At its most basic level: personality traits * Broad individual differences * Ex: The Big Five * Account for consistency in behaviour * Then characteristic adaptations * Values, goals, personal projects, defences (ex: avoidance) * Capture more socially contextualized and motivational aspects of individuality * At the highest level: narrative identity * Internalized and evolving life stories * Tell what a person’s life means in time

Answer 201

* High neuroticism is associated with stories characterized by: * High negative emotion * Low positive emotion * Less growth * More contamination sequences * High agreeableness is associated with stories characterized by: * High communion * Openness to experience is associated with stories characterized by: * More complex, containing multiple plots * High coherence

Answer 202

* High power motivation associated with life stories that: * Emphasize agentic themes * Use an analytic and differentiated narrative style (focusing on differences, separation, opposition) * High intimacy motivation associated with life stories that: * Emphasize communal themes * Use a holistic and integrated narrative style (focusing on similarities and connections between different life story scenes)

Answer 203

* Different kinds of people construct different kinds of stories * Links between personality, goals, values and life stories * Correlation, not causation * Direction of the personality-life story link is unclear

Answer 204

* Those who are resilient in the face of life challenges tend to engage in a 2-step process of meaning making: 1) Exploring the negative experience in depth 2) Committing self to a positive resolution * More redemption sequences and focus on personal growth are associated with higher well- being * Moving on to step 2 is important because staying stuck on step 1 can lead to rumination * Only going to step 2 is often an example of emotional avoidance * Both are important * People who are depressed tend to create life stories with themes of contamination (they may be engaging in step 1 more than step 2 or not engaging in step 2 at all)

Answer 205

* Psychotherapy is a prime arena for creating and challenging life stories * Theme of personal agency in life story appears to be one of the most/the most important predictor of therapeutic efficacy/change * In studies of former psychotherapy patients, those who report current higher levels of well-being tend to narrate heroic stories in which they bravely battled their symptoms * In a prospective study, increases in themes of agency in narratives preceded and predicted improvements in mental health * Important therapeutic marker for change

Answer 206

* Highly generative midlife adults tend to see their own lives as stories of redemption * Type of narrative story that tends to be very common in Americans * Generative: people with a strong commitment to promoting the well-being of future generations and improving the world they live in * Consistently demonstrates 5 features

Answer 207

1. Early advantage (EA): The narrator indicates that they have experienced an advantage or distinction (physical, material, psychological, social) that singles them out for special positive attention 2. Sensitivity to the suffering of others (SS): The narrator expresses sympathy for the problems of other people or societal injustice as a child 3. Moral steadfastness (MS): The narrator emphasizes strong value system which motivates behavior. The values are central to their identity and unshakeable 4. Redemption sequences (RS): The narrator describes a movement from demonstrably negative situation to a positive outcome 5. Pro-social goals (PG): The narrator sets goals that involve contributing to the well-being of others beyond one’s own family

Answer 208

* Examined the life stories of 157 midlife adults * Also completed self-report measures of generativity, psychological well-being, and depression * Found statistically significant positive correlations between the different Life Story Themes of the Redemptive Self and generativity and psychological wellbeing * Found no significant associations with symptoms of depression, except for negative correlation with early life adversity

Answer 209

* Sets up a moral challenge that encourages the person to help the next generation (very motivating) * “I am blessed, but others suffer” * Redemption sustains hope in the face of challenges and setbacks (helps us remain optimistic) * Culturally valued: * Pervasiveness of the redemptive self suggests that it's an American cultural prototype of “the good life” * People use this prototype to make sense of their life * The American dream is that regardless of what kind of circumstances you're born into, you can be anyone you want to be -> upward mobility

Answer 210

* We construct our narrative identities according to the norms and scripts present in our culture * Culture tells us what events are meaningful, what's a “tellable” story, and provide a blueprint for how to make sense of events * Ex: life milestones = post-secondary education, job, moving out of parent’s house, get married, have kids

Answer 211

* Cultural differences in the types of memories that come up in narratives * North American (vs East Asian) adults tend to: * Report earlier age of first memory * Have more detailed memories of childhood * Have memories more focused on own personal experiences and emotions * Chinese adults recall more social/historical events and memories place greater emphasis on social interactions and loved ones * Differences in memories reflect cultural differences in prioritization of the individual vs the collective * Memories of North American adults are much more individualistic * Memories of Chinese adults are much more collectivistic

Answer 212

* The self’s ability to alter its own responses, including thoughts, emotions, impulses, and behaviours based on standards * Standards: ideas about how something should or shouldn’t be * Might be personal standards or someone else's standards * Could also be moral standards * “Self-regulation” is often used interchangeably with “self-control”

Answer 213

* Conflict between an immediate urge/desire vs a higher order standard/goal (ex: temptation) * Research suggests that people spend about 5-6 hrs per day resisting desires and urges * Good self-regulation often involves successfully resolving self-control dilemmas (ex: over-riding the immediate urge in favor of the standard/goal) * We know we're exercising self-regulation/self-control when we're presented with the self-control dilemma

Answer 214

* Classic study of self-regulation * One of the earliest and most well-known studies into self-regulation * One of the first measures of self-regulation, specifically testing children’s ability to delay gratification * This is difficult and challenging * What are the kids doing to try to manage the self-control dilemma that's in front of them * It looks like they're really struggling * Some are doing a better job than others of not even having a tiny taste of this marshmallow * There are individual differences in the way these children can navigate this * Study showed that: * Delaying gratification is difficult * Successful delay of gratification in children depended on the implementation of self-regulation strategies: * Cognitive strategies (ex: imagining the marshmallow as something else (ex: a cloud) rather than focusing on how yummy it is) * Distraction (ex: making sounds to distract themselves) * Not looking at the marshmallow

Answer 215

* Mischel and colleagues used children’s ability to delay gratification at age 4 to predict outcomes at age 14-15 * Children who were better at delaying gratification at age 4: * Did better academically in high school * Had higher SAT scores (delay of gratification was a better predictor of SAT scores than intelligence at age 4) * Showed better social skills * Suggests that better self-regulation is associated with better outcomes in adolescence

Answer 216

* Followed a sample of 1000 children from birth to age 32 * Measured self-control and ability to delay self-gratification in children ages 5-6 using observational measures * Assessed physical health, finances, and criminal records at age 32 * Results: Children with poorer self-control had worse outcomes as adults, controlling for level of intelligence and SES background * Children with better self-regulation had better outcomes as adults * Controlling for intelligence and SES, children with poorer self-control had worse health, more likely to have a substance-dependence issue and more financial problems * Children that at age 5 and 6 struggled with self-regulation, had lower SES at age 32, reported that they planned their finances less, had lower incomes, and had more financial struggles compared to their peers who had higher self-control at ages 5 and 6 * This is controlling for initial SES at ages 5 & 6 * Controlling for intelligence and SES, children with poorer self-control were more likely to be single parents and more likely to be convicted of a crime/have a criminal record * These findings are very well-established * Especially when it comes to having a criminal record * Having difficulties with impulse control and delaying gratification seems to be one of the most important predictors of whether somebody will engage in some kind of criminal activity

Answer 217

* Self-regulation is difficult but research suggests that it leads to many positive outcomes * Overall, suggests that good self-regulation is one of the keys to a successful life

Answer 218

* One of the most well-established models that tries to articulate how the self-regulation process works * Feedback loop model: 1. Standard: Identify what is the desired end state of self-regulation (some sort of goal) 2. Test: Monitor level of discrepancy between the current state and the standard 3. Operate: Control/adjust behaviour into the desired direction (assuming that there's some kind of discrepancy between your current performance and your goal) 4. Test: Result of “operate” serves an input for another test * If your test doesn't lead to desired result, then you go back to the operate stage (feedback loop) * Feedback loop: constantly cycling between test and operate and monitoring our progress until there's no discrepancy between our goal and current performance, at which point we can exit this feedback loop and use this process toward another goal 5. Exit: Occurs if current state is in line with desired standard * This is essentially how goal pursuit and self-regulation happens according to this model

Answer 219

* Standards/goals * Monitoring (test) -> framed as self-awareness * Willpower/capacity for change (operate) -> to somehow change our behaviour to get closer to this goal * Good self-regulation involves the efficient operation of all 3 of these (not that only one of these matters and the others don't) * Difficulties with any one of these 3 components results in difficulties with self-regulation/self-control

Answer 220

* The most influential model in this domain * How likely we are to achieve a standard/goal depends on: * Expectancy: whether we expect that we can accomplish the goal if we attempt it * Value: how much we value the goal/find it worth doing (goal is important and meaningful to us) * 4 factors that influence value * We are most likely to achieve standards that are high expectancy + high value * Associated with higher motivation

Answer 221

* More likely to accomplish a goal if we believe that it is achievable * Highlights importance of setting realistic goals that make sense for us

Answer 222

1) Importance * How important is it to do well on the goal? * Influenced by how central a goal is to sense of self * Ex: If goal = improve grades, more motivating if being a “good student” is central to identity 2) Intrinsic value * To what extent do you want to do the goal for its inherent satisfaction? * Ex: practicing an instrument because it’s fun and challenging (vs out of obligation) * Kids tend to set goals that are very intrinsically valuable to them 3) Utility * How useful do you find the goal for your life? What’s the benefit? * Often related to how useful a specific task is for the pursuit of other, higher-order goals * Ex: going to bed earlier, so that you’ll be in a better mood/more productive tomorrow 4) Cost * What does the goal cost you? * Time? Money? Boredom?What other things could you be doing? * Procrastination is often due to a goal being costly * With any goal, there usually always is some kind of cost to it whether it's small or large * Factors 1-3 foster motivation * Factor 4 hinders motivation

Answer 223

* In theory, expectancy and value are separate independent dimensions * High value, but low expectancy = hopeless/demoralizing goal * We can really value a goal but not expect that we're going to be able to achieve it * Low value, but high expectancy = easy, but boring goal, not very energizing * But, in reality, highly positively correlated with each other, and negatively correlated with cost * Suggests that they track one another * If we think we have a high likelihood of being able to accomplish a goal we also tend to value it more * Also, the more we feel a goal is realistic and we value it, we tend to perceive it as less costly * Expectancy and Value Reinforce Each Other (cycle): * Expect to do well -> Value task more -> Do the task more/put more effort into it -> Improve at task -> Expect to do well (and so on) * Similar process to the feedback loop of self-affirmations

Answer 224

* To foster good self-regulation, we need to set good goals * “Good” goals/standards are ones that are: * Achievable and realistic * Valuable to you * Or if they're not immediately valuable, find a way to frame it as valuable to you * Ideally let go of goals that are too costly and that don’t feel valuable (important, intrinsic, or useful) to you

Answer 225

1) Lack of self-knowledge * If we don't have a good assessment of knowing what our competencies, weaknesses or strengths are can interfere with setting realistic standards (issue with expectancy) * Lack of clarity on what standards/goals are important and intrinsically motivating (issue with value) * If we're unclear about who we are, what we like and what we dislike this can get in the way of value component 2) Perfectionism * Associated with tendency to set unrealistic goal (issue with expectancy) 3) Self-control dilemma * If there's some other more tempting thing that interferes with the goal we set for ourselves, this can interfere with our motivation because it increases cost of goal (issue with value) * Each of these increase the chance of failing at a goal

Answer 226

* The capacity to direct attention to oneself (self- focused attention) and engage in thoughts about oneself * Self-awareness, unlike directing attention to other objects/people, automatically leads to a state of comparing the self against salient standards * Ex: self-awareness automatically triggers self-evaluation * Automatically engage in a process of judgement * As a result, increasing self-awareness often leads to behaving in a way consistent with salient standards (personal standards or some other person's standard) * As a result, it sometimes leads to self-criticism and people feeling self-conscious

Answer 227

* The presence of a mirror stimulates/increases self-awareness * Research shows that if you have someone complete a task in front of a mirror, they tend to become more self-aware even if their attention isn't brought to the mirror * People use more first-person pronouns when sitting in front of a mirror than when not sitting in front of a mirror * The presence (vs absence) of a mirror leads people to: * Work faster and harder on a task when instructed to do so * Behave in more moral ways * Behave less aggressively * Behave in ways that are more consistent with previously stated personal values * Suggests that failure to behave in ways consistent with a standard may be due to lack of self-awareness * Suggesting that increasing self-awareness seems to lead to an increase in good behaviour

Answer 228

* Field study * Does lack of self-awareness lead to more misbehaviour? * Recruited people in the neighbourhood handing out candy to trick-or-treaters * Method: Halloween trick-or-treaters (all children) were told to take only one candy but were left alone with the opportunity to take more (left them with the bucket of candy) * 2 conditions: * Mirror in front of bucket full of candy * No mirror in front of bucket full of candy * Wanted to see which group of kids are more likely to abide by this instruction when they think no one's watching them * Results: Children in the mirror condition were more likely to obey the instructions and children in the no mirror condition were more likely to disregard the instruction and take more than one piece of candy

Answer 229

* Alcohol reduces self-awareness * When Ps are given alcohol, they use fewer first-person pronouns than Ps who consumed a placebo non-alcoholic drink * In lab settings, Ps that are given alcohol (vs non-alcohol drink) tend to: * Behave more recklessly * Spend more money * Behave more aggressively * Suggests that poor behaviour may be due to lack of self-awareness to be able to align their behaviour with these standards

Answer 230

* Self-awareness is critical for self-regulation * The process of comparing the self against a standard makes behaviour change possible * Very difficult to regulate something without closely monitoring it * Suggests that if you want to achieve a goal, monitor your progress and foster self-awareness

Answer 231

* Self-control/willpower is a limited and general mental resource * Idea that we have this reserve of willpower * Any sort of task that we engage in that requires self-control relies on this reserve of willpower * After exerting effort on a task that requires self-control, self-control is impaired such that people will do worse on another task requiring self-control, even if the tasks are unrelated * Metaphor of the muscle: after using a muscle a lot, you then lack the strength to do an exercise with that muscle

Answer 232

* Ps perform 2 separate, independent tasks that both require self-control/willpower * Tasks are performed one after another * Typical ego-depletion effect: people tend to perform poorer on this second task compared to a control group that are not having to do a task requiring self-control initially

Answer 233

* Does emotion regulation lead to poorer physical stamina? * Ps completed a baseline handgrip endurance measure * Then watched a sad movie * Experimental manipulation (Ps were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 conditions): * Increase emotion: Let the movie affect you and express your emotions on your face as much as possible * Decrease emotion: Avoid letting the movie affect you and express as little emotion on your face as possible * No emotion control: no instructions * Then handgrip endurance measured again * Findings: * Evidence for ego depletion effect * Ps who had to alter their emotional state had decreased handgrip endurance compared to people who did not have to control emotions * Presumably because they had already used up some of their willpower by trying to regulate their emotions * People in the control condition's handgrip performance didn't change at all

Answer 234

* Examples of ego depletion reducing performance on 2nd self-control task: * Looking for and crossing out a particular letter in a text leads to reductions in handgrip endurance * Writing an essay about attitudes one doesn’t believe in (cognitive dissonance) reduces persistence on a follow-up task (effortful because they're having to suppress their actual opinion) * Suppressing forbidden thoughts leads to giving up more quickly on unsolvable anagrams * Evidence that ego depletion increases impulsive, disinhibited behaviour: * Spend more money on impulsive purchases * Eating more junk food * Drink more alcohol * Fewer sexual inhibitions * More aggressive responses to being provoked * Meta-analysis of 600 studies suggests that these findings are robust and well replicated * This is very well-studied * These highlight that our willpower isn’t domain-specific but is instead general

Answer 235

* Moderators of this effect * Mental processes are either automatic or controlled: * Automatic: require few cognitive resources and occur outside of conscious awareness, common for familiar/highly practiced tasks * Ex: tying your shoes, driving a familiar route * Automatic processes shouldn't be relying on self-control because we're on auto-pilot * Controlled: require active, conscious attention and effort, involved in learning new skills or complex situations * Ex: playing a new musical instrument, solving a complex math problem * Ego depletion affects controlled processes, but not automatic ones * Ex: vocabulary performance (automatic) remains intact after ego depletion but logical reasoning (controlled) is impaired

Answer 236

* Ego depletion can be overcome if people are given an important incentive to do well on the 2nd task * Ex: told that their performance will help others or paid based on performance on 2nd task * But usually show even more depleting after this 2nd task * Suggests that ego depletion effects reflect conservation of willpower, not a complete absence of willpower * People are managing a limited energy supply by holding back in the present * Ex: someone doing a long distance run

Answer 237

* Self-control/willpower is costly in the short term * Willpower is a general and limited supply that has to be replenished * Can do this by taking a break between 2 tasks requiring self-control * All types of self-control draw from this one supply * People tend to conserve their willpower unless highly motivated in the moment to expend it * Ego depletion explains why people may fail to sometimes achieve their standards/goals

Answer 238

* Decent chunk of researchers in social psych that are very skeptical of ego depletion theory * Some researchers have argued that the ego depletion effect doesn’t exist or that the effect is very small if it does exist and probably doesn't impact anything * 2014 meta-analysis: meta-analysis of 198 studies concluded that the size of ego depletion effect is small and not significantly different from 0 * 2021 study: multi-lab replication study (3531participants) of 1-2 ego depletion studies found no reliable effect of ego depletion (unable to replicate these ego depletion effects) * But another 2021 multi-site replication conducted in 12 labs (1775 participants) showed a small, but significant effect * Over 600 studies have been published supporting ego depletion effects * Often when there's these kind of conflicting findings, there are different ways to figure out what's going on

Answer 239

1) Publication bias for positive results * The way academia works is you want to get your work published * It's way more interesting to publish some kind of effect * Academic journals tend to prioritize a publication of some kind of effect * When researchers don't find any significant or positive results, then they throw their findings away and don't even bother trying to get published * When studies don't produce the predicted outcome, they're not published * Leads to only “successful”studies being published resulting in the inflation of an effect 2) There probably is an effect (intuitive and lots of findings) but have to figure out under what circumstances it exists * Many studies using general ego depletion methodology assume that the 1st and 2nd tasks rely on self-control, rather than explicitly testing this assumption * Need to figure out which tasks do and which tasks do not rely on self-control * Ego depletion research focuses on controlled processing rather than automatic processing * Individual differences? * Possible that ego depletion effects are stronger for some people or in some situations, but not others 3. Over-reliance on lab studies which may not reflect what’s going on in the real world * Field research would help clarify under what circumstances ego depletion exists

Answer 240

* People vary in trait self-control * There's individual variation on trait self-control * People high in trait self-control are consistently better able to successfully deal with self-control dilemmas * More likely to do things more in line with their goals * More likely to agree with the statements that have a + associated with them on Tangney et al. (2004) 13-Item Brief Self-Control Scale (BSCS) and less likely to agree with statements that have - associated with them

Answer 241

* de Ridder et al. (2012) meta-analysis of 93 studies shows that higher trait self-control is associated with: * Better performance at school and work * Sustaining healthy relationships * Less binge-eating * Higher overall psychological well-being

Answer 242

* We tend to intuitively think that people high on trait self-control are good at effortfully resisting temptation/have more willpower * When they encounter a self-control dilemma, exert willpower to inhibit undesirable urge and choose to act in accordance with goal * BUT, in everyday life, people high on trait self-control experience fewer self-control dilemmas than low trait self-control people * Report fewer experiences of temptation in everyday life * Suggests that they’re hardly using effortful self-control which goes against the idea that high self-control is effortful and difficult

Answer 243

1. Better at setting and pursuing goals that are intrinsically rewarding * Ex: actually enjoy activities that many struggle with like eating healthy, exercising, studying * Because they're intrinsically valuing these, it makes sense that they feel less effortful for them 2. Set-up and follow/rely on routines and habits which are more automatic * Ex: consistent exercise routine, consistent study schedule 3. Structure their lives in such a way that they don’t experience temptation * Ex: make a point of not walking by a bakery on the way to school 4. Identify self-control dilemmas (temptation) earlier

Answer 244

* How do high trait self-control people react to self-control dilemmas? * Method: Participants presented with pictures of food on a computer * Instructed to click “positive” when presented with healthy food and “negative” when presented with unhealthy food * Measured: * Trait self-control * Reaction time (RT) to select an answer * Implicit and explicit self-control dilemma * Implicit: mouse trajectory from the bottom of the screen to select an answer * Straight mouse path to negative indicated no temptation experienced * How they index implicit self-control dilemmas: * When they notice a pull in mouse path toward positive which then ends up in negative (pull = temptation) * Intensity of dilemma = degree of “pull” in direction of answer not selected * Also assessed when the “peak pull” occurred * Explicit self-control dilemma: “How conflicted do you feel about your answer?” * Results: Higher trait self control... * Predicted weaker feelings of conflict (explicit self-control dilemma) * BUT not related to average degree of “pull” * Suggests that high and low trait self-control people experience same amount of temptation on an unconscious level (no difference in their implicit pull) * Predicted earlier “peak pull” * Suggests that high trait self-control people detected self-control dilemma earlier * Predicted faster RT for correctly classifying food (healthy=positive, unhealthy= negative) * Suggests that resolved self-control dilemma faster * Suggests that high trait self-control people are detecting self-control dilemmas earlier which allows them to deal with them in a faster and more efficient way at an unconscious level * So good at this that they don’t consciously experience the temptation (not consciously registering for them) * Why they say "I don’t know how I can do this"

Answer 245

* People that have good self-control are exercising this ability effortlessly by relying on automatic processes: * Habits and routines (by definition we're not thinking about these as much) * Reducing exposure to temptation * Earlier temptation detection * Implies that if you want to improve your chances of completing a goal, make your behaviour as automatic as possible

Answer 246

- Implementation Intentions - One of the most useful and promising answers to this question

Answer 247

* Very specific plan about how you will achieve a goal in a particular situation * Link a situation with a specific action * “When situation X arises, I will perform response Y” * Ex: "If…then…" * Part of the reason why they're effective is that they solve problem of goals being too vague and increases your commitment by focusing on one method of achieving a goal * These help you avoid putting your eggs in more than one basket * There's some research that shows that this isn't as helpful * Ex: 1 option per goal instead of multiple options for 1 goal * Having too many ways to complete a goal reduces commitment to any one particular option making you less likely to complete the goal * Because we're not particularly committed to any of the options/actions, then we fall in loop of relying on the other one and not putting much effort in either of them

Answer 248

* Do implementation intentions help people achieve goals? * Method: Ps were instructed to write a report about how they spent Christmas Eve that was due on December 26th (probably one of the times of the year where people are least likely to want to do this) * Experimental manipulation: * Implementation intentions: Think about when and where you will write report * Control: Simply asked to write report * Wanted to see who completed the report * Implementation intentions group was more likely to complete goal * Found they were 2x more likely than control group (~70% of implementation intention completed report compared to 33% of control group completed report)

Answer 249

* Method: Recruited people who wanted to exercise more * Ps tracked how often they exercised for 2 weeks * 3 experimental groups: * Control: Track how often you exercise * Motivation: Track how often you exercise + read about benefits of exercise * Implementation intention: Track how often you exercise + read about benefits of exercise + set implementation intention * Ex: “During the next week, I will partake in at least 20-mins of vigorous exercise on [DAY] at [TIME] in [PLACE].” * Implementation intentions set at T2 (after one week) * Who exercised at least once per week? * Findings: * Seems like monitoring did nothing for control group * No benefit of increased motivation intervention * Implementation intentions doubled the rate of people exercising at least once a week at T3 * Suggests that when we don’t reach goals, not because of lack of motivation or lack of monitoring, but because lack of specific plan

Answer 250

* Implementation intentions facilitate goal achievement, such as: * Exercising more * Eating a healthy diet * Writing a CV * Managing anger (ex: next time I feel angry, I will count to 10 while I breathe) * Increasing perspective-taking * Increasing public transportation use * Increasing voter turn-out * Increasing flu shot rates

Answer 251

* Method: Ps identified personal projects they intended to achieve during Christmas break * Experimental manipulation (randomly assigned Ps to one of 2 conditions): * Easy goal * Difficult goal * Assessed implementation intentions * Results: Implementation intentions were useful for completing difficult goals, less relevant for completing easy goals

Answer 252

1. Heightened accessibility of situational cues (“when”) * Improves ability to detect the situational cue relevant to our goal 2. Formation of a strong mental link between the situation cue and the planned response * Consequently, automates action initiation * Priming us to look out for the situations in which our goal is relevant * Ex: Goal = eat healthy, situational cue = meal, action = eat vegetable

Answer 253

* Implementation intentions show that conscious planning can make goal pursuit more automatic over time * Remove need for a conscious decision to pursue a goal at the relevant time * Intended action is executed more effortlessly, rather than relying on effortful self-control * Some of our goals can be triggered very automatically

Answer 254

Auto-Motive Model

Answer 255

* Goal pursuit is not always deliberate, goals can be activated and pursued automatically, without conscious awareness 1. Learned associations: people form associations between situations, goals, and actions based on repeated past experiences 2. Automatic goal activation and pursuit: Once these associations are established, encountering the situation can automatically trigger the goal and its associated action, such that the person is pursuing the goal outside of conscious awareness * Ex: Goal = go downtown, situation = metro station, action = take orange line to Lionel Groulx

Answer 256

* Auto-Motive Model: * Situation-goal-action mental links created unconsciously via learned associations * Person is not necessarily aware the goal is being pursued * Implementation Intentions: * Situation-goal-action mental links created consciously via “forming “if-then” plans * Person is aware they set up the goal pursuit

Answer 257

* What kind of goals do people pursue in different relationships? * Classmate = self-enhancement (but not with friend or romantic partner) * Friend = “helping friend” + “having fun together” * Mother = “wanting to make mom proud” (but not with friend or romantic partner)

Answer 258

* Does thinking about a specific relationship automatically trigger interpersonal goals usually pursued in that relationship? * Method: * Randomly assigned to 1 of 3 priming conditions: Form a vivid picture in your mind and write about... * Mother * Best friend * Bedroom (control) * Part 2: Read about description of “Mark” and form impression * Hypothesis: Mother prime -> will see Mark as more motivated to succeed (vs friend prime) * The goal of wanting to make mom proud will be more accessible and thus attributed to Mark * Findings: * Mother condition led to statistically significantly higher mean rating of "Mark" motivation than control and friend * Thinking about mother increased accessibility of Ps own goal with mother (wanting to make mom proud) which they then projected onto Mark * Evidence that relationship-specific goals can be automatically activated by just thinking about that person

Answer 259

* Relationship partners can unconsciously activate interpersonal goals which are then pursued unconsciously * Relationships have the power to influence our motivations and behaviours, even when the relationship partner is not physically present

Answer 260

* Humans have a “pervasive drive to form and maintain at least a minimum quantity of lasting, positive, significant interpersonal relationships” * “A great deal of human behavior and thought is caused by this fundamental interpersonal motive” * 1st proposed in classic paper by Baumeister and Leary in 1995 * Ex: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs * Older theory * Belonging just above our basic physiological and safety needs

Answer 261

1) Frequent pleasant interactions - Need to occur in the context of long-lasting caring relationships (with people we care about) 2) Long-lasting caring relationships - If we have neither one of these is insufficient as we need both to feel like our need to belong is satisfied

Answer 262

1) Need satisfaction/not met should influence emotions (ex: hangry) 2) Unmet need should motivate behaviour to satisfy it 3) Should follow the principles of satiation and substitution - Satiation: we'll continue to pursue trying to fulfill this need until the point of being satiated (being satisfied) - Substitution: this need is quite general in the sense that it can be satisfied in many different ways 4) Chronic need satisfaction/ frustration should be related to health outcomes 5) Universal

Answer 263

* Lots of evidence for this when we think about social behaviour/socializing * Creating new social bonds is strongly associated with positive feelings * Ex: making a new friend, falling in love * Life satisfaction strongly correlated with having some close relationships * Having some close relationships is fundamental for happiness * The loss of social bonds is strongly associated with negative feelings (ex: sadness and anxiety) * Highly upsetting when separation/loss happens * Reluctance to end bad relationships

Answer 264

* Social rejection is one indicator of an unmet need to belong * Associated with negative feelings * Social reconnection hypothesis: Feeling rejected motivates us to seek out new bonds and strengthen existing ones * Thus, negative feelings associated with rejection are adaptive/useful because it's motivating reestablishing social contact * Rejection signals to us that our need to belong is unmet and should motivate us to have this need be met * Because it's aversive, it's motivating healthy behaviour * One of the most common ways that this has been tested is through the "future alone" paradigm

Answer 265

* Does rejection lead to a desire for social contact? * Method: * “Future alone” paradigm * Ps complete personality test and receive fake feedback * To make the feedback more believable they'll usually add in some accurate personality feedback based on the questionnaires the Ps completed * This feedback doesn't feel good * Randomized to 3 conditions: future alone vs future belonging vs future misfortune (control) * Future belonging: Ps told they're the kind of person that'll have a future filled with rewarding relationships * Future misfortune condition: Ps told that they're the kind of person that'll be accident prone in life * This acts as an extra control as it has nothing to do with social life * To see whether it's negative feelings in general causing the effects or rather negative feelings that are specifically associated to hearing about being alone for the rest of their life * Then asked “To what extent would you prefer doing the next task with a few other people?” * Findings: * “Rejected” participants showed strongest desire to work with others * Other 2 conditions were not statistically significantly different from each other * Demonstrates the theory that when our need to belong is unmet through feelings of rejection, this motivates us to then reinitiate contact with others * “Rejected” (vs accepted) participants also showed: * Greater interest to meet and connect with new friends * Greater desire to join student group to connect with others * Rate others as more attractive and sociable (perceive attributes in others that make them seem more approachable and are consistent with their own needs) -> if rejection is instilling a greater desire to belong and socialize in people, they're going to project that desire onto others and therefore perceive people in ways that are consistent with that goal

Answer 266

* Rejection is also associated with withdrawal (isolation to avoid experiencing rejection again) and even aggression sometimes (ex: passive aggressive) * Majority of school shooters in the US had experienced chronic rejection (whether that's through bullying or harsh and critical family conditions) (Leary et al., 2003) * In the lab, rejected people: * Evaluated another person more negatively * Delivered longer and louder blasts of aversive noise to the rejector * Gave rejector hot sauce knowing that they hate spicy food * Last 2 are ways that researchers examine aggression in the lab

Answer 267

- Often moderator at play - Explains in what kind of situations people behave in one way vs another or in what kind of people we see certain behaviours vs other behaviours

Answer 268

* Does intensity of rejection moderate rejection-aggression link? * Method: * Manipulated intensity of rejection using Cyberball paradigm (other very commonly used paradigm in rejection research) * Believed they were playing with 3 other people * 4 conditions: Excluded by all 3 players, excluded by 2, excluded by 1, or included by all (how they varied the intensity of rejection) * Prepared food for another participant (confederate) not involved in Cyberball * This other person hates spicy food * How much hot sauce do they give this other person? (measure of aggression) * Those accepted by 0 people had most intense rejection and were most likely to act aggressively and give more hot sauce to confederate who hates spicy food * Being accepted by even one person greatly reduces likelihood of rejected person lashing out and reduced how aggressively they behaved (gave way less hot sauce) * Suggests a little acceptance goes a long way * Feeling accepted even just by one person seems to counteract the potential negative effects of being rejected * Additional acceptance had decreasing incremental effect

Answer 269

* Ps are told they'll be playing this online game with other Ps that are participating in the study at the exact same time * Initially there's a very nice cooperative turn-taking game of throwing this ball * Everybody is throwing to each other * P is being included in the game * Eventually, the other 2 players (who don't actually exist but P thinks it's other Ps) start excluding the participant and start only passing the ball to each other and not at all involving the participant * Supposed to mimic what would happen in a schoolyard when people were kids

Answer 270

* Person moderators: are there certain kind of people that are more prone to behaving aggressively when they're rejected or react badly to rejection * Rejection sensitivity is one of the person-level variables that has been studied the most * Rejection sensitivity: disproportionate fear to being rejected * People high in rejection sensitivity are much more scared of being rejected * Associated with: * Hyper vigilance to signs of rejection * Very accommodating of others when rejection is not perceived (people-pleasing - attempt to prevent rejection) * Over-interpreting neutral, ambiguous cues as rejection * Aggressive (especially passive aggressive) behaviour when rejection is perceived * Attempt at self-protection (not rational but rather emotional) * This is an individual difference on the level of the person * Some people are more and some are less rejection sensitive * This also changes overtime * People that are younger tend to be more sensitive to rejection * People get less scared of rejection as they get older (probably because they get used to it or realize that it's not so bad)

Answer 271

* Does degree of rejection sensitivity moderate reactions to rejection? * Method: Study on “how people choose partners in dating services” * Wrote a short biosketch (personality description of themselves) * Told it would be emailed to another participant (potential partner - not a real person) that would have to choose between the participant or someone else to have a 15-minute chat with * Completed a self-report measure of rejection sensitivity * Experimental manipulation: * Rejection: Not chosen by potential partner * Control: Internet down so email wasn’t sent * Participant asked to help experimenter with different study examining link between personality and food preferences * Participant prepared food for potential partner who hates spicy food * Measure of aggression: How much hot sauce do they give the potential partner? * Findings: * Rejection elicited aggression only in those high in rejection sensitivity * High RS people in control condition less likely to give hot sauce can be interpreted as them doing their people pleasing and being very accommodating because there was no sign of rejection * High RS people in rejection condition gave the most hot sauce in reaction to this rejection * Indicates how different people are going to be reacting to rejection

Answer 272

* Rejection promotes affiliation only if we see connecting with others as a realistic, and viable option: * Ex: people need to feel at least minimally accepted by others * Ex: need to not generally fear rejection/expect others to reject us (low rejection sensitivity)

Answer 273

* People seek out new relationships until their need to belong is met * Less motivated to seek out relationships once they feel like they have a sufficient number of satisfying relationships * Evidence: * Average student’s meaningful interactions happen with same 6 people * People generally prioritize having a few close friends over having many, less close friends

Answer 274

* Need to belong can be satisfied by different kinds of relationships * To some extent we can say that relationships are substitutable * Evidence: * As a romantic relationship develops, people generally spend less time with other people, including old friends * A person who's in a new relationship is now having their need to belong being met by this romantic relationship so they're now less reliant on their friends * People are more likely to cheat in relationships in which they feel lonely/ rejected (indication that need to belong is not met) * We replace relationships that have ended with new ones * We can meet this need to belong through others

Answer 275

* What if we’re “hungry” for belonging and there’s no one to connect with? * People can get really creative when they find themselves in this situation * When people don’t see viable connections in real life... * Look to para-social relationships (relationships in which one person is very emotionally invested in another person and this other person doesn't even know they exist -> ex: people's obsessions with celebrities) * Ascribing human characteristics to non-humans (anthropomorphism): * Pets * Technology (ex: people developing what they feel are meaningful relationships with ChatGPT, substituting it for friends, romantic relationships, therapists) * Objects (ex: Wilson in Cast Away)

Answer 276

* Method: * Manipulated feelings of connection/disconnection using future alone paradigm * Created animacy judgement task * Ps were presented with pictures one by one * Some of these pictures were of dolls and others were of human faces * They had to decide whether this picture was of an animate face (human) or inanimate (not human -> doll) * They created a continuum * They took these 2 extremes and morphed them to have varying degrees of the human face vs the doll face * Gets tricky to tell in the middle * Trying to quantify people's specific animacy threshold * Animacy threshold: point at which participant detects animacy * Lower animacy threshold = accept face with less human features and more doll-like features as animate * Hypothesis: Feelings of social disconnection/rejection (future alone) should be associated with lower animacy threshold (more willing to accept faces that have more doll-like features as human) * Findings: * People who received “future alone” feedback had a lower animacy threshold than those who received “future belong” feedback * Suggests that social disconnection makes us lower the bar for acceptable social contact at least temporarily

Answer 277

* Poorer mental health * Lack of adequate supportive relationships associated with increased stress * Children who grew up not receiving adequate emotional attention from caregivers have poorer mental health * Also children who are chronically bullied tend to have poorer mental health * Poorer physical health and immune response: * Lonely people tend to take longer to recover from stress, illness, injury * There have been studies where Ps come into the lab and report how lonely they feel and the researchers give them a small paper cut * The people who say they feel chronically lonely take the longest for this paper cut to heal * Earlier mortality (compelling evidence that chronic belonging deprivation leads to earlier mortality)

Answer 278

* Meta-analysis of 148 studies (308,849 participants) looking at effects of social connection on physical health * Results: People who have stronger social relationships are 50% more likely to survive in a given time frame than those who have weaker relationships * Controlling for age, sex, initial health status, cause of death, and follow-up period (all these things being equal) * The influence of social relationships on mortality is comparable, and even exceeds, the effect of well-established risk factors for mortality * Feeling socially connected was just as important, or very comparable, for health as not smoking too much * Effect of social connection was even bigger than physical activity, a person's BMI, and than whether they struggled with hypertension * How important it is on our physical health to be socially connected can't be understated

Answer 279

Everyone has a need to belong but there are individual differences in how strong this need is

Answer 280

* Social connection critical for survival * Attachment system’s function is to ensure infants’ proximity to caregivers so that they survive (consistent with attachment theory) * Connection to group: * Fend off predators (humans aren't physically apt for survival as other animals are - find their strength in numbers, groups can protect us against predators) * Share labor, food, care for young * Led to development of biological mechanism to motivate us to seek belonging to social groups and lasting relationships * Hypothesis: Pain system as biological mechanism underlying need to belong * Evolutionarily older physical pain system appropriated to prevent separation from others

Answer 281

* We seem to use the same kind of language when talking about physical pain and social pain * Ex: * “They hurt my feelings” * “She broke my heart” * “I’m cut to the core” * “Emotionally scarred” * “He ripped out my heart” * “Like a slap in the face” * This seems to be the case in a lot of other languages as well * We would then expect these 2 types of pain to be processed in the same brain areas

Answer 282

* Activation in dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) associated with emotional aspect of physical pain * Lights up when we feel bothered by physical pain * When people have this part of the brain temporarily deactivated or damaged, they continue to feel physical pain but they're not bothered by it

Answer 283

* Is social pain also processed in dACC? * Method: * Ps played Cyberball while undergoing fMRI scan * Assessed degree of distress after exclusion * Results: dACC activity associated with feelings of distress (clear positive linear association) * Evidence that physical and social pain are processed in the same brain region

Answer 284

* Applied heat to their hand and told them to stop when it got painful (pain tolerance) * Looked at pain unpleasantness threshold * Physical pain sensitivity associated with sensitivity to social exclusion (reported feelings of distress in Cyberball) * Negative correlation between social distress and pain unpleasantness threshold (as social distress goes up, pain unpleasantness threshold is smaller)

Answer 285

* Does easing physical pain also ease social pain? * Method: Double-blind, placebo-controlled study * Experimental group: Daily dose of Tylenol (acetaminophen) for 3 weeks * Control group: Placebo for 3 weeks * Feelings of social exclusion assessed via: * Daily evening self-report of feelings being hurt that day * Cyberball with fMRI after 3 weeks * Hypothesis: Tylenol would reduce feelings of social exclusion * Findings: * Tylenol group reported fewer hurt feelings overtime (vs placebo group) * Tylenol group showed less dACC activation after exclusion in Cyberball game

Answer 286

* When the strength and/or direction of the relationship between an independent and dependent variable depends on a third variable * The third variable is called a moderator * Shows you for whom, when, or under what circumstances a relationship exists * Language used to describe moderation: * “The relationship between X and Y is moderated by” * “The relationship between X and Y depends on...” * “This effect is true for these people, but not these people...” * Ex: relationship between implementation intentions and goal completion is moderated by goal difficulty or relationship between rejection and aggression depends on rejection sensitivity

Answer 287

* Explains the mechanism that underlies a relationship between an independent and dependent variable via the inclusion of a third variable * The 3rd variable is called a mediator * Language used to describe mediation: * “The relationship between the independent and dependent variable is mediated by...” * “The independent variable influences the mediator which influences the dependent variable” * “The independent variable influences the dependent variable through the mediator” * Ex: age influences SCC via role commitments (being older is associated with more role commitments which are associated with higher SCC) or link between threat to self and increased self-esteem is mediated by prejudicial attitudes (threat to self led to prejudicial attitudes which increased self-esteem)

Answer 288

* Any behaviour made with the intention of influencing how other people see you * The process of constructing and maintaining a desired reputation * Continuous, evolving overtime * Never fully done and accomplished * Connotation that we're all actors

Answer 289

* Self-presentation tends to be automatic, not strategic * Often not consciously controlling and monitoring * Follows behavioural scripts/habits that have been frequently rewarded in the past * Ex: smiling and listening attentively because these have led to past approval * More likely with people we’re familiar with and who know us well * Self-presentation is sometimes more controlled: * Ex: More self-conscious and focused on the impression we’re creating, including planning and rehearsing the self-presentation * More likely when the audience is important and we’re uncertain about the impression we’re creating * Ex: job interview or date

Answer 290

1) Beneficial * The actor views it as facilitating their goals 2) Believable * The self-presentation can be credibly presented and defended to the audience

Answer 291

* Self-presentation is often motivated by the desire to be liked by others * Rooted in evolution: * A good reputation increases one’s chances of survival and reproduction * In modern times, a good reputation is also essential for smooth and successful social functioning * Leads to pervasive socially desirable behaviour

Answer 292

* Lab studies consistently demonstrate that people behave in more socially desirable ways in public vs. private * In public, people are: * More generous and helpful when others are watching * Conform more and accept more influence from others * Work harder when watched

Answer 293

* Judge: the individual trying to form an impression of the “target” * "The target" is someone for whom they're trying to form of an impression of as a person * “An individual who accurately understands the personality of another person based on the correspondence of their impressions with realistic criteria” * This is measured through: * Self-report * Informant reports * Behavioural measures * Research on this topic tends to look at whether the judge's personality perception of the target aligns with the target's self-perception * Problem: * Research has struggled to find criteria to differentiate good from bad judges * Are there external factors unrelated to the judge that might affect their quality? * Maybe it has to do with the target themselves * Maybe they're not presenting relevant info or they're not sharing enough for the judge to form an impression * This led to the RAM

Answer 294

* Mingault & Human (2021) * Necessary stages for an accurate impression to be formed * Relevance -> Availability -> Detection -> Utilization * Target: Relevance (whether the target is sharing relevant personality cues) and Availability (if they're sharing relevant personality cues, are these available to the judge) * Judge: Detection and Utilization * Relevance: Are personality cues relevant? * Availability: Are they available to the judge? * Detection: Does the judge detect them? * Utilization: Does the judge use them to form an impression? * Model that first relies on the target to share relevant info about themselves and then whether the judge can detect and use them to form an impression * Previous models focused on the judge themselves * The RAM adds the target * Looks at if the target is also providing relevant info to the judge

Answer 295

* Is the good target a necessary condition for the good judge to emerge? * Method: * Multiple large samples of judges + targets with either face-to-face interactions or judges just watched a recorded video of the target * Accuracy of impressions: correspondence between judge/target/informant reports of the target’s personality using the big 5 trait inventory, intelligence scale * Goal: form an impression of the target's personality * Results: * Individual differences between quality of targets larger than judges * Good targets: people sharing info that's relevant to who they are as a person * Good judges more accurate at detecting their personalities * Bad targets: no relationship with judge quality and accuracy * This relationship held across video and face-to-face interactions * This was supportive of the RAM in that you need a good target for differences in the quality of the judges to emerge * With having face-to-face interactions, it might just be that the judge is eliciting relevant personality cues by asking the target relevant questions * In having accuracy in video conditions where the judge had no control over what info the target was sharing, we can see that there's still a difference in the quality of the judges

Answer 296

* Jim's personality is more evident and clear because he interacts with others more * It would be harder to form an accurate impression of Toby in a short amount of time

Answer 297

Someone who shares relevant personality cues and makes them available to the judge

Answer 298

What makes a target more likely to share relevant info? 1) Psychological Adjustment * High self-esteem: trait-coherent behaviour * More likely to behave in line with their own personality and traits * People who are judging them are more likely to form an accurate impression of them * Accurate, not overly positive impression * Low self-esteem: less accurately perceived * More cautious in expressing negative feelings and traits for fear of being judged or of people rejecting them 2) Self-Concept Clarity * Greater motivation to behave in line with important/relevant traits which in turn leads to more accurate perceptions of them being formed 3) Power * Trait dominance, experimentally manipulated power led to greater expression of true opinions and values

Answer 299

1) Extroversion * People who are extroverted tend to be with others more frequently and for longer periods of time * Provide more information within those periods (seems to predict the availability of personality info) * Ex: Human et al., 2021 found that extraversion predicted expressive accuracy of big 5 traits with new acquaintances, close others, and on Facebook 2) Emotional expressiveness * “The extent to which targets’ emotional reactions can be read from their faces when they are not deliberately attempting to communicate those emotions... Or the extent to which targets are judged as expressive, open, and uninhibited in nonverbal/verbal behaviour * Improves perceptions of more affect related traits (ex: agreeableness, neuroticism) * Lower levels associated with less accurate personality judgement

Answer 300

1) Intrapersonal benefits * Self-disclosure: disclosing personal information to others is often rewarding * People inherently feel some kind of gratification with this * Self-verification: intrinsically satisfying to received feedback that aligns with our self-views 2) Interpersonal benefits * People who are more accurately perceived tend to be better liked * Greater intimacy and relationship satisfaction * Workplace: Moore et al. (2017) found that high quality applicants driven to self-verify were more likely to be offered a job

Answer 301

“Culture is a loosely integrated system of ideas, practices, and social institutions that enable coordination of behaviour in a population”

Answer 302

* Most research compares Americans/Canadians to East Asians * Assumes that conclusions about individualism or collectivism in these countries can be extended to other countries * But individualism and collectivism likely look different in different cultures * Examples: 1. Expressive interdependence in Latin culture 2. Assertive interdependence in Arab culture 3. Emotional experience in German culture

Answer 303

* Latin America is considered to be collectivistic/interdependent * There's a focus on close relationships, priority on the culture than on the individual * But, achieves this interdependence by being emotionally expressive * The idea that being more emotionally expressive leads to more communication * In contrast to East Asian interdependence achieved through emotional restraint * Study by Salvador et al (2020): investigated this idea by comparing European Americans, Colombians, and Japanese students on cognition, attributions, and emotional experience * Columbians in between Americans and Japanese on field dependence vs. independence * US students were more field independent than Japanese students * Columbians in between Americans and Japanese in making situational vs. dispositional attributions * US = more dispositional attributions * Japan = more situational attributions * Columbians more emotionally expressive than Japanese, and similar to Americans * BUT, express more socially engaging (vs. disengaging) emotions than Americans, similar to Japanese * Columbian students have a commonality with both

Answer 304

* Arabs as a cultural group are considered to be collectivistic/interdependent * BUT may promote interdependence through self-assertion * Self-assertion as a way to sustain and protect ingroup identity and welfare * In North America, being more assertive is a way of getting what you want * In contrast to East Asian culture, where being self-effacing is more common and self-assertion is seen as hindering ingroup harmony * Study by San Martin et al (2018): investigated this idea by comparing European Americans, Saudis, Lebanese, and Japanese students on cognition and self-assertion * Arabs showed holistic cognition similar to Japanese * Arabs show self-assertion similar to Americans

Answer 305

* Germany is an independent culture, but emotional experience is different from USA * Study by Koopmann-Holm et al. (2014): Examined differences in reaction to grief between European Americans and Germans * Ps imagined their reactions to a close acquaintance losing a loved one * Results: * European Americans (vs. Germans) reported greater desire to avoid negative emotions * Led to differences in how sympathy was expressed * European Americans more likely to send sympathy card that focuses on the positive * Germans more likely to send sympathy card that focuses on negative * Almost all German sympathy cards had a black background

Answer 306

The way people in a culture historically made living influences culture (ex: farming cultures more interdependent vs herding and fishing cultures more independent)

Answer 307

* When our attempts to get others to like us actually create a negative impression 1) Too obvious * If it becomes too clear that we’re doing things mainly to be liked, they are less effective 2) Come across as bragging * Bragging is interpreted as a negative judgment about others, including the listener 3) Behaviour doesn’t match claims * Leads to perception of being unreliable and untrustworthy

Answer 308

* Beneficial: the actor views it as facilitating their goals * Believable: the self-presentation can be credibly presented and defended to the audience

Answer 309

* Difficult to study social media since it’s constantly changing * Most research into social media use investigates Facebook use * Social media takes many forms so hard to know if effects can be generalized to all platforms or are restricted to just one

Answer 310

Profiles display idealized characteristics that do not reflect who we really are

Answer 311

People use social media to communicate their real personalities

Answer 312

* Passive use associated with decreased well-being * Ex: scrolling through your News Feed, looking at friends’ profiles * Leads to more social comparisons and more feelings of envy * Active use associated with increased well-being * Ex: posting status updates, sharing links, commenting on friends’ photos * Leads to greater social capital and feelings of connection

Answer 313

- Overall, research shows a positive correlation between people’s self-reports/close others’ reports of their personalities and coders’ ratings of their personality - Research shows that there's more support for the extended real-life hypothesis

Answer 314

* Realistic-accuracy model * Offline, accurate personality perception depends on: * A target making relevant cues of their personality available * A perceiver detecting and using these cues to infer personality * Online personality perception functions the same way * Personality cues (what are we posting, what are we liking, what are we reposting, what are we commenting/commenting on) = individual differences in how social media is used

Answer 315

* High extraversion associated with: * Expressiveness in profile pic and other photos * More Facebook friends * More posts about current activities * High openness associated with: * Posts about left-wing politics * Creative picture * Posts about cultural interests * High neuroticism associated with: * Fewer positive posts and pictures (generally post less) * Spend more time on social media, but more likely to use it passively (generally just look at other people's content)

Answer 316

1) Visibility of trait * Some traits are easier to detect by perceivers * Ex: extraversion is more visible than neuroticism (more of an internal process) * Visible traits are judged more accurately than less visible traits * Extraversion perceived most accurately (r = 0.41) * Neuroticism perceived least accurately (r = 0.11) 2) Extent of activity on social media * People that are less active (ex: post less, change their profile photo less often) are expressing fewer cues * Leads to their personality being judged less accurately

Answer 317

* Algorithm analyzed Facebook likes of 7000 participants and used this to make personality judgments * Compared to participants’ self-report * Algorithm’s judgment of individual’s personality based on Facebook profiles was more accurate than friends’ and family’s judgments of individual’s personality

Answer 318

* Self-esteem * Depression * Loneliness * Academic achievement

Answer 319

No relationship between TikTok use and well-being

Answer 320

- Processes by which people’s self-views are influenced by their perceptions of how others view them - Observe other's reactions to us (direct feedback and behaviour) -> infer other's perception of us -> internalize other's perception into self-concept -> self-concept guides behaviour -> Observe other's reactions to us (direct feedback and behaviour) (restart)

Answer 321

- Stage of reflected appraisal in which people form subjective impressions of others’ views of them - What we think others think of us - Part of cycle: "infer other's perception of us - Ex: my coworkers must think I'm funny

Answer 322

- False consensus effect: tendency to overestimate the overlap between self- views and views of others; applies to metaperceptions - Illusion of transparency: overestimating the extent to which our feelings, personality, goals etc. are evident to others - Overlooking overt cues: social situations are cognitively taxing causing people to miss social cues

Midterms Flashcards

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