WHY SELFPRESENT

1
WHY SELF-PRESENT?

• To obtain resources
• to attract retain social support/mates
• to gain material goods
• to gain status (which enables other resources)
• Smooth interactions
• people know what to expect from one another
• all the world is a stage
• To manage self-image
• how others see you how you see yourself

2
Instances of Self-presentation

• Goal
• Why
• How

• To appear/to be likable
• to belong (gain goods/status)
• to manage self-image
• express liking for others
• create similarity
• make ourselves physically attractive
• project modesty

3
Instances of Self-presentation

• Goal
• Why
• How

• To appear competent
• to gain goods/status
• to attract others (form ties/gain mates)

stage performances claim competence use the
trappings of competence self-handicap --
creating obstacles to hinder ones own future
successes
4
Instances of Self-presentation

• Goal
• Why
• How

• To convey power
• to gain goods/status
• to manage self-image
• to belong to groups

• display success
• consume conspicuously
• associate with others of high status
• intimidation
• nonverbal communication

5
When you screw it up
good self-presentation
bad impression

• Ingratiation
• Project modesty
• Claiming competence
• Stage performance
• Self-handicap
• Display success
• Intimidation

• kissing-up
• appear incompetent/insincere
• cockiness
• show-off or failure
• failure
• show-off
• unlikable

6
After your failure

• Account giving
• claim innocence (deny, deny, deny)
• reinterpret events/status
• justify/excuse your position
• apologize
• Identity repair inflate other strengths

7
social psychology thus far..

• introduction
• theoretical perspectives
• assumptions about behavior
• goals of behavior
• person-situation interaction
• methods/statistics
• psychology as science
• research methods
• interpreting/evaluating data
• the self
• definition
• composition
• functions
• development
• the self in action

8
oral exams oh God nooooooooooooooo?

• critical thinking what is it?
• Issues/questions/examples
• how do the different theoretical perspectives
  work together to reveal different aspects of
  social behavior?
• what are the strengths/limitations of each
  perspective?
• how would the _________ perspective explain the
  behavior of teenage girls at the Backstreet Boys
  concert? (Becky????)
• why is random assignment to groups critical to
  the process of causal inference?
• why are individuals from collectivist cultures
  less likely to commit the fundamental attribution
  error?
• how do we get /new friends to like us more? Why
  are these techniques effective?
• do you agree with Goffmans dramaturgical
  perspective on social interactions? What events
  are more strongly scripted than others in your
  experience? How did you respond/feel?
• women are more likely to ingratiate themselves
  than men. How can this be explained in terms of
  the social learning and evolutionary perspectives?

9
oral exams oh God nooooooooooooooo?

• are people more likely to make the fundamental
  attribution error about the behavior of a friend
  or an acquaintance?
• there are different ways we manipulate our
  situation to appear competent. How do we attempt
  to portray ourselves as competent? What kind of
  examples have you used in your life?
• give an example of
• false consensus
• false uniqueness
• Clearly distinguish the two
• are self-serving biases adaptive or maladaptive?
  Why ?Show examples of these biases in your own
  behavior
• which two general types of theories address
  self-esteem? Which of the two do you feel best
  describes your own sense of self-esteem?
• is low self-esteem an issue about which we, as a
  society, should be concerned? Why or why not?
  How could the issue be addressed?
• is scientific rigor necessary in social
  psychology? Why or why not?
• which motives/goals for human behavior are
  pertinent to your own behavior? Why is this so?
  Are these likely to change over time?, and if so,
  how?

10
oral exams oh God nooooooooooooooo?

• identify the ways in which people and their
  context/situation can interact and shape
  behavior. Are any of these more current in terms
  of your own situation? Why?
• in terms of the motives and goals that form the
  basis for our behavior, can these be categorized
  in any way? Content specific and process
  specific forms?
• how can what you have learned thus far, if you
  in fact have learned anything other than this
  guys an idiot!, aid you in your undergraduate
  career, occupational career, and life more
  generally?
• what is the distinction between motives and
  goals?
• give an example of an incident in your life when
  your behavior was
• clearly situationally determined
• clearly dispositionally determined
• In what way are these two situations similar?
  How do they differ?
• what factors have influenced the development of
  your own self-concept? Which have been more
  important and why? What are the potential
  benefits or value of awareness and understanding
  of this concept and its development?
• are we just wasting our time?

11
Perceiving the World
12
A Social Cognitive look

• Social Cognition
• process of thinking about ourselves, others,
  and our world
• how we attend to, interpret, and utilize current
  past events in our lives
• Social reality is constructed.
• People are motivated tacticians
  (Fiske Taylor, 1991)
• to MANAGE SELF-IMAGE
• to CONSERVE EFFORT
• to BE ACCURATE

13
Read the following aloud as quickly as you
can!!!!!
A BIRD IN THE THE HAND

• What info is attended to affects everything!
• Basic perceptions are influenced by previous
  experience, current distractions, etc

14
Constructing a Personal Reality

• How did the ref miss that call?!
  I saw it all the way up here!
• Self-serving views of own abilities status
• Students perceptions of football games (Hastorf
  Cantril, 1954 Loy Andrews, 1981)
• Other examples
• Political/ethnic wars ( US-Chinese relations)
• judging Presidential debates
• USS Vincennes v. Air Korea shootings
• ? ? ? ?

15
Motive To manage the Self- image
Feeling Control
...influences how we subsequently perceive events

• Illusory correlation --
• People find evidence of control when there is
  none!
• Gamblers fallacy
• Find correlations in independent events

• Overconfidence --
• tendency to be more confident than correct
• What implications does this have for legal
  systems?

16
Motive To manage the Self- image Seeing what we
want to see

• Confirmation bias -
• we actively seek information consistent with
  views
• We look to assure ourselves of our initial views
• related to development of Self (self-verification)
  
• Belief Perseverance
• initial beliefs persist despite later
  disconfirming info
• Based on the explanations initially generated
  when using the initial information
• Negated by actively considering specific
  alternatives

17
Motive To manage the Self- image Remembering our
Way

• Memory is process of backward reasoning
  reconstruction of events as you see them
• Memory of past (attitudes actions) is
  influenced by present
• We revise the past to suit the present
• Can include info that has happened since the
  event of interest
• EX relationships seen as negative post-break-up
• EX belief that past actions consistent with
  current

18
Motive Conserve effort

• Our goal is to be just good enough
• adaptive for an information-rich world
• Intuitions
• making judgments without reasoning or analysis
• information is accessed almost immediately
• debate Preferences need no Inferences
• Cognitive heuristics
• mental shortcuts used to make judgments (Tversky
  Kahneman, 1973)

19
Motive Conserve effort Cognitive Heuristics

• Typically discussed in terms of short-comings
• Availability
• likelihood of events judged by availability in
  memory

20
Motive Conserve effort Cognitive Heuristics

• Anchoring Adjustment
• judgments are made by adjusting from a rough
  estimate