PSGY1012 Social Psychology Lecture 1: Me, Myself, and I PDF

PSGY1012: SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY Lecture 1: Introduction / Me, Myself, and I Dr Eun Hee Lee [email protected] Introduction to the Module What is Social Psychology: Social psychology is the scientific investigation of how the thoughts, feelings and behaviour of individual...

PSGY1012: SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY Lecture 1: Introduction / Me, Myself, and I Dr Eun Hee Lee [email protected] Introduction to the Module What is Social Psychology: Social psychology is the scientific investigation of how the thoughts, feelings and behaviour of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined or implied presence of others. - Hogg & Vaughan, 2011 Introduction to the Module Social Psych 1 Identity (Self & Social) emphasizes understanding foundational theories Intergroup and their applications. Group Dynamics Relations Social Psych 2 delves deeper into each theory, focusing on how you apply them effectively. Aggression & Interpersonal Helping Relations Behaviour How is the Course Assessed? 100% = Examination  ExamSys Exam (2hr)  40 multiple choice questions.  4 possible answers to each question.  The examination is not negatively marked and we do not correct for chance (so answer every question even if you’re guessing).  2 mini-essays (500 words each) – try to remember the author and the year for theories and evidence  Theoretical  Applied  The exam questions cover the entire module. Core textbook Social Psychology Hogg & Vaughan Hogg. (2022). Social psychology / (Ninth Edition.). Pearson Education Limited. You can access through NUsearch https://nusearch.nottingham.edu.my/ PSGY1012: SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY Lecture 1: Me, Myself, and I Today we will… Consider these questions about the self:  What is self awareness?  Public vs. private self-awareness  How did you get a self? (your self concept, knowledge of yourself)  How do we change the self?  How accurate is your view of the self?  Self-enhancement  How does culture affect the self? Read Chapter 4 from Social Psychology (Hogg & Vaughan, 2022)  Self Concept In order to introduce yourself you first need to have a concept of yourself as an individual. “self awareness” We can test self awareness with the mirror test (Gallup, 1970; rouge test, mirror-self-recognition test)  Children under 18 months usually don’t have self awareness.  Some nonhuman animals have passed the test (e.g., https://youtu.be/M2I0kwSua44 chimps, dolphins, elephants). Public Self-Awareness... Do you feel awkward/anxious introducing yourself?  If you are very aware of yourself in social situations you can become self conscious.  Public Self-Awareness: the awareness of oneself from the imagined perspective of others (awareness of how others see you)  It can make you aware of your shortcomings and cause a temporary loss of self-esteem (e.g, hearing recorded voice yours..)  You might respond by adhering to social standards of behaviour (you’ll do what you think the group expects) – social conformity  Evaluation Apprehension: anxiety,  Private Self- Awareness...  Private self-awareness (introspection): your awareness of thoughts, feelings, attitudes, etc. Effects include:  Your perceptions of yourself become more accurate  Opposite to Public Self-Awareness: You’re more likely to follow your own personal beliefs or standards than the social norms (greater adherence to personal standards of behaviour)  Intensification of Affect: Emotions become more intense  Too much self awareness is associated with anxiety and depression (the causal Low Self-Awareness...  Too little self-awareness can also be a problem:  You stop monitoring your own behaviour.  Which can lead to uninhibited, impulsive behaviour that is risky or may upset others.  In a group: you might experience deindividuation  loss of self-awareness in groups  You may go against social standards of behaviour.  Do things that you wouldn’t normally do  Because you just don’t see yourself as an individual but just a part of a group Self-Awareness Self-Awareness Self Knowledge To introduce yourself you need to know about you!  Self-schemas are your store of thoughts, beliefs and attitudes about yourself. Traits (qualities) can be..  Self-schematic: things that are important to you. You have a clear concept of yourself on these issues.  Aschematic: things that are not important to you. How did you get a self? Self-Perception Theory (Bem, 1967): We gain knowledge of ourselves by inferring our own attitudes from our own behaviour. Conventional Wisdom: “I don’t like cheese so I didn’t eat cheese.” Bem’s View (sometimes the other way round): “I didn’t eat cheese, so I guess I don’t like cheese!” How did you get a self? Social Comparison Theory (Festinger, 1954)  People have a fundamental drive to evaluate their attitudes and opinions, and often do so by comparing themselves with others. How did you get a self? Social Comparison Theory (Festinger,1954) Two main forms of social comparison:  Downward social comparison (can make us feel better about ourselves).  Upward social comparison (useful when trying to improve ourselves, but can make us feel bad). How did you get a self? Why do we engage in social comparison?  It’s a good way of calibrating how well we should be doing in life. Is 9 out of a 10 a good mark on a test?  How did you get a self? Self-Evaluation Maintenance Model (Tesser, 1988):  Describeshow we maintain or increase self-evaluation via social comparison with another person.  Consists of 3 variables:  The psychological closeness of another  The relative performance of other  The relevance of the performance dimension to one’s self definition  If we have to compare ourselves with someone better than us (upward comparison), it could damage our self-esteem. So, people may avoid this by:  claiming the other person isn’t really like them.  stop seeing that person.  Reduce relevance of the performance! How did you get a self? Self-Categorisation Theory (Turner et al., 1987): When I am alone, I am me. When we feel we belong to a group, we may automatically internalise the attributes that describe that group. All depends on the context and salience. I am an ‘Artist’ so I am emotional and sensitive How did you get a self? BIRGing (Caldini et al., 1976):  Basking in Refl ected Glory – linking yourself to desirable groups to improve your own/other people’s opinion of you. CORFing  Cutting Off Refl ected Failure – Refusing to believe that the failure was deserved Your team wins: ‘We won’ Your team loses: ‘They lost’ Quick MCQ Time! Cultural Differences: Impact on self-perception Individualist Cultures Collectivist Cultures = > Independent Self = > Interdependent Self Autonomous individual, separate Connected with others and from context embedded in social context Focus on internal traits feelings, Represented in terms of roles and thoughts, abilities relationships Unitary and stable across Fluid and variable self, changing situations across situations Acting true to internal beliefs and Belonging, fitting in and acting feelings, promoting own goals and appropriately, promoting group differences from others goals and harmony How do we change ourself? Self-Regulation Motivation System to understand our current situation and our goal  How do we change the self? Control Theory (Carver & Scheier, 1981):  People test whether their goals for their self have Monitors and decides been met.  If their goals are unmet, Action they do something to change themselves  Then they test again. How do we change the self? Self-Discrepancy Theory (Higgins, 1987): This theory suggests we have 3 types of self schema  Actual-self: How we currently are  Ideal-self: How we would like to be  Ought-self: How we think we should be A discrepancy between our actual-self and ideal-self or ought-self causes negative How do we change the self? Self-Discrepancy Theory (Higgins, 1987): Actual vs. ideal discrepancies → dejection- related emotions like e.g., dissatisfaction and sadness Actual vs. ought discrepancies → agitation- related emotions e.g., guilt and shame The bigger the discrepancy, the worse we feel! This model is similar to the Control Theory of Self Regulation but adds EMOTION  Different Types of Self- Motives We are motivated to get knowledge about ourselves but with different underlying motives….. :  Self-Assessment: We aim to find out the truth about our self.  Self-Verification: We aim to verify what we already know about our self.  Self-Enhancement:We aim to find favourable information about our self. Self- enhancement Self-Enhancement We like to think highly of ourselves!  We tend to overestimate our good points.  We overestimate how much control we have over the situation and how much influence we have on other people.  We’re overly optimistic about the future. *This positive bias might be useful. People with mild depression tend to be less biased: They engage in less self- enhancement. Self-Enhancement Myers (1998): “for nearly any subjective and socially desirable dimension... most people see themselves as better than average” (p. 440). The usual finding is that around 60-70% describe themselves as “above average” and around 25% describe themselves as “below average”. But of course it’s mathematically impossible for more than 50% of people to be in the top 50%... Self-Enhancement Examples: Most people see themselves as healthier, better looking, more ethical, less prejudiced, and funnier than average. 1 million high school seniors: 89% rated themselves as above average in ability to get along with people. 68% of lecturers think they’re in the top 25 percent of all lecturers. At least 43 percent of them must be wrong! Prisoners view themselves as more moral, more dependable and more trustworthy than non-prisoners, and as equally law abiding. (!) 65% of people think they’re more intelligent than the average person; only 23% disagree. Self-Enhancement Dunning-Kruger Effect: A type of cognitive bias in which people believe that they are smarter and more capable than they really are  Due to people’s inability to recognise their lack of ability People in the lowest IQ quartile overestimate their IQ; people in the highest IQ quartile underestimate theirs. Self-Enhancement Self-Serving Bias We often attribute our successes to personal factors but our failures to external causes. Students in one study were given an IQ test. 1. Told that they did really WELL 2. Told that they did very BADLY  Later, they were asked about their impressions of the test. Results: Those told they’d done badly minimized the importance of good performance, and attributed their bad scores to bad luck, unclear instructions, or the invalidity of the test – apparently anything other than their own ability!  Self-Enhancement Illusion of Control We overestimate how much control we have over events and other people. People think that, if they chose their own lottery numbers, they’re more likely to win. In rigged games, people attribute their own successes to skill but their failures to luck. Similarly, when a group achieves success, most members of that group overestimate how much influence they had on achieving success. But if the group fails, people tend to think they personally had little to do with the failure. Self-Enhancement Other Self-Enhancement Techniques People tend to see their virtues as uncommon but their failings as normal. We assign greater importance to things we’re good at, and may belittle things we are not good at. When we perceive others as physically attractive, we perceive them as having a personality more like our own. Core Reading Hogg & Vaughan (2022) - Chapter 4. Self and Identity Homework Read Chapter 4. Organise theories by the following topics with details: Understanding self, Changing self, Self- enhancement Next Week: Social Cognition and Bias