Self1

Self1

1. the world

   • spotlight effect
     • The tendency to think that others pay more attention to our actions and looks than they actually do
   • illusion of transparency
     • the tendency to believe that our faces will clearly show our emotions and that others will notice the emotions shown on clearly on our faces
   • social surroundings -> self awareness
     • only member of our race, gender, or nationality in a group, we notice how we differ and how others are reacting to our difference.
     • eg: when going to msia, I feel more conscious and that I stick out as I am very Singaporean
   • self interest -> social judgment
     • in times of conflict, we see our partners responsible; in good times, we see ourselves responsible
   • self concern -> social behaviour
     • we pay attention to our appearances, monitor behaviour and expectation of others
   • social relationships define sense of self
     • depending on who we are with, our self-concepts and behaviour changes
       • self-concept: who am i
         • self-schemas
           • beliefs by which we define and perceive our “selves”
           • affect how we perceive, remember, and evaluate other people and ourselves
           • influenced by others through social comparisons
             • evaluating one’s abilities and opinions by comparing oneself with others
             • comparing upwards
               • when we experience success
               • lesson our satisfaction
               • when encountering competitions
                 • will perceive competitors as more advantaged
                   • to protect our fragile self-concept
             • comparing downwards
               • increases our self esteem
               • might take pleasure in peer's failures
         • influenced by other people's judgments
           • we will think how others perceive us
           • Looking-glass self theory
             • we think that others will look at us like how we perceive ourselves

2. culture

   • collectivist
     • interdependent
       • many selves; depends on who we are with
     • self-critical
     • prioritises group goals
     • less positive self views
     • promotes integration and belonging with others
       • emphasis on social approval
     • social
   • individualist
     • self-reliant
     • independent
     • prioritises one's goals
       • persist more when succeeding
         • success improves self-esteem
     • personal attributes
     • personal

3. self-knowledge

   • predicting behaviour
     • planning fallacy
       • underestimating how long it will take to complete a task
   • predicting feelings
     • difficult to predict how intense and duration of future emotions
     • impact bias
       • overestimating the enduring impact of emotion-causing events
         • especially after negative events
         • people neglect how fast and the strength of their coping mechanisms
         • we adapt to difficulties more easily than expected
   • self-analysis
     • attitudes people consciously expressed toward things or people usually predicted their subsequent behavior reasonably well
     • dual-attitude
       • automatic implicit, unconscious attitudes
         • change more slowly
       • consciously controlled, explicit attitudes
         • can easily change

4. self-esteem

   • individualist: more personal, less relational
     • more constant despite different situations
     • makes comparisons to increase self esteem
   • collectivist
     • will vary, depends on context
     • makes comparisons for self-improvement
     • persist more when failing
       • obliged to meet expectation of others
   • overall self-evaluation or sense of self-worth
   • how we perceive ourselves influences our self-esteem
   • self-esteem affects how people perceive themselves in specific domains
   • when threatened
     • high self-esteem
       • compensate for it
         • eg: blame others, perceive others as failing, exaggerate their superiority over others
     • low self esteem
       • give up
       • blame themselves
   • terror management theory
     • humans must find ways to manage their overwhelming fear of death
     • motivates us to gain recognition from our work and values.
   • people who had higher self esteem due to external sources are more unhappy
   • low self esteem
     • negative view of everything.
     • less satisfied with their relationships
     • prefer understanding responses, even if they are negative
     • experience more problems in life
   • self efficacy
     • (how competent we feel on a task
     • high
       • more persistent, less anxious, and less depressed
       • healthier
       • set challenging goals and persevere
       • stay calm and seek solutions rather than ruminate on their inadequacy.
         • more successful academically
     • believe you can do something

5. self serving bias

   • tendency to perceive oneself favorably
   • attribute the success to their ability and effort
   • failure to external factors
   • situations that combine skill and chance
   • self-serving attributions
     • (attributing positive outcomes to oneself and negative outcomes to something else
     • maintain our positive self-images
     • we see ourselves as objective and everyone else as biased.
   • when people compare themselves with others
   • stronger for traits that are more subjective or difficult to measure
   • unrealistic optimism
     • about our futures
     • expected their lives to improve
     • less likely to experience negative events
       • Believing ourselves immune to misfortune
         • we do not take sensible precautions.
     • promoting self-efficacy, health, and well-being
     • defensive pessimism
   • false consensus effect
     • find support for our positions by overestimating how much others agree
     • overestimate the commonality of our opinions and our undesirable or unsuccessful behaviours
     • We guess that others think and act as we do
     • for opinions
   • false uniqueness
     • for ability
     • when we behave well or successfully
     • we underestimate the commonality of our abilities, virtues and successes
     • seeing our talents and moral behaviors as relatively unusual
     • see our failings as relatively normal and our virtues as relatively exceptional
   • to increase self-esteem