PSY415 Psychology of the Self

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PSY415Psychology of the Self

• Week 3
• The Search for Self-Knowledge I

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What Do People Think of Themselves?

• Positivity Bias
• People regard themselves
• as better than they really are
• in more positive and less negative terms than
  they regard most other people
• People regard in-group members in more positive
  and less negative terms than they regard
  out-group members

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Assessing the Accuracy ofPeoples Self-Views

• Can an individual possess that many positive
  traits?
• Are individuals self-views accurate?
• Is there an objective criteria for assessing
  the accuracy of self-views?

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Correspondence b/w Self-Views Objective Criteria

• Individuals appraisals of their intelligence and
  their actual IQ scores correspond only for small
  amounts
• r .30
• Individuals are more accurate in appraising
  themselves in specific domains
• Self-appraisals about mathemathics is higly
  correlated with their math performance
• Studying correspondence by using correlations is
  problematic...

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Correspondence b/w Self-Views Social Criteria

• Self-other Agreement
• Attractiveness self-other correspondence is r
  .24, whereas interrater agreement is r .60
  (Feingold, 1992)
• Athletic ability self-other correspondence is r
  .16, whereas interrater agreement is r .65
  (Felson, 1981)
• Popularity self-other correspondence is r .32
  (Felson, 1983)
• Parenting parent child correspondence is .43
  r .57 (Demirutku, 2007)

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Correspondence b/w Self-Views Social Criteria

• Similarity in self-related appraisals can result
  from
• Ambiguity vs. inambiguity of traits
• Familiarity of significant others with ones core
  attributes
• Desirability of the traits
• Although self-other agreement does not
  necessarily indicate accuracy, some attributes
  are socially defined

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Correspondence b/w Self-Views Behavior

• Attitude-Behavior Consistency is low unless
• Attitudes are specifically measured in
  correspondence with behaviors
• There is a long time between the measurement of
  attitudes and behaviors
• Central attitudes predict behavior better
• Value-(Value-Expressive) Behavior Consistency
  (Bardi Schwartz, 2003)
• For the self .32 r .68
• For the partner .04 r .64

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Correspondence b/w Self-Views Behavior

• Individuals overestimate their ability to predict
  their future behavior
• Overestimation is more likely when the behaviors
  or outcomes are especially positively valenced
• There are limitations for positivity bias
• Cultural boundaries
• Self-perception
• Self-verification

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How Do People Maintain Positive Self-Views?

• The way we define personal attributes facilitates
  maintaining positive self-views
• What is honesty?
• Leaders are task oriented vs. Leaders have social
  skills (Dunning et al., 1991)
• Self-serving definitions are more likely
  following negative feedback Self-Enhancement
• The nature of the self-views are affected by the
  ambiguity in the assessment of the particular
  trait (Felson, 1981)
• Speed, size objective
• Mental toughness, football sense subjective

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Behavioral Factors That Promote Positive
Self-Views - Selective Exposure

• People want to receive feedback when they
  believed that their abilities were positive, but
  not when they are negative
• This tendency is not limited to achievement
  settings per se health-related feedback is more
  preferrable when it is positive than negative

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Behavioral Factors That Promote Positive
Self-Views Self-Handicapping
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Behavioral Factors That Promote Positive
Self-Views Self-Handicapping
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Behavioral Factors That Promote Positive
Self-Views Task Choice

• Individuals indifferently approach or actively
  avoid negative feedback
• Trope (1986) observed the opposite
• Subjects were offered various tests allegedly
  good or bad at identifying ones abilities
• They chose good identifiers
• Similar results were obtained for tests allegedly
  good at identifying low ability as well
• Limitation Only if people seek feedback without
  regard to the valence of feedback, accuracy can
  be inferred

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Behavioral Factors That Promote Positive
Self-Views Strategic-Information Seeking

• Avoidance of negative feedback is not always
  obvious or deliberate
• Avoid public demonstration of ability to avoid
  testing it
• Thus, one can maintain the self-view
• People seek diagnostic feedback on attributes
  that are modifiable
• Therefore, favorable feedback is guaranteed
• Seeking feedback for products (controllable) is
  different from seeking feedback for ability
  (uncontrollable)

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Social Factors That Promote Positive Self-Views

• Selective Interaction
• Individuals choose interaction with others who
  admire or have positive prejudice toward
  themselves
• Biased Social Comparison
• Downward comparisons make individuals feel better
  If there are no comparison others, individuals
  invent them!
• Self-Evaluation Maintainance Model (Tesser, 1988)
• Personal relevance of the comparison domain is
  important
• Upward comparison might have negative (vs.
  positive) consequences in domains of high (vs.
  low) relevance
• Individuals choose their friends accordingly, and
  spouses arrange their lives such that they
  experience less conflict

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Personal Factors That Promote Positive Self-Views

• Individuals welcome positive feedback, but
  critically scrutinize and refute negative
  feedback
• Show better memory for positive than negative
  self-relevant information
• Autobiographical memory is biased such that
  individuals can claim possessing positive
  attributes
• Introspect about themselves in ways taht enable
  them to confirm the possession of positive and
  disconfirm the possession of negative traits