The Self I

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What causes the desire to see ourselves in positive terms?
A strong motivation arising from factors such as high self-esteem, control and affiliation.
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What is a self-serving bias?
An unrealistic positive view of the self, which can be shown in situational attribution of negative events and personal attribution of positive events.
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Why do we attribute positive outcomes to dispositional factors and negative outcomes to situational factors?
People expect to do generally okay in life; they have an easy-to-retrieve expectancy that tells them this. It can also be functional; we believe we are successful so we will work harder.
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How did Stevens & Jones' (1976) work show a defensive attribution pattern?
They got pps to share 100 points between four factors (ability, effot, task difficulty and luck) after performing a task. Those with +ve feedback put it down to personal ability, those with -ve feedback said it was due to luck.
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How do we protect ourselves from self-esteem damaging feedback?
We tend to typically receive +ve or sugar-coated feedback; we choose friends with similar views; we interpret ambiguous feedback in a +ve way; we belittle source of -ve feedback.
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What is cognitive dissonance?
When your thoughts/ attitudes are not in line with your behaviours.
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How might dissonance be reduced?
By changing behaviour or justifying the behaviour to yourself to alter your beliefs about it.
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What are the 4 parts of the Bluffer's guide to rationalisation?
Seek cognitions consistent with the discrepancy; change your beliefs; look for areas of yourself which are +ve (not dissonant); trivialize the issue.
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What is defensive pessimism?
A chronic tendency to prepare for the worst case scenario.
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Why might we self-handicap?
So that when we inevitably fail, we have a reason for doing so.
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How did Kunda (1987) show the biased theory generation?
Got pps to asses their own attributes, and how these relate to marriage success. Pps then read about happily married/ divorced introvert/ extrovert. If they were happily married, pps put it down to attributes if they had similar attributes.
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How did Kunda (1987) show how we ward off links?
Pps read article about link between caffeine consumption and fictional cancerous disease. Pps were more critical of the paper if they drank a lot of caffeine themselves.
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How did Gilbert et al. (1998) show inaccuracy of predicting impact of events?
Pps did a job interview. Predicted how they'd feel immediately after and 10 mins later if they were rejected. All pps got rejected, and rated how they felt. Predicted immediate feelings well but were actually happier after 10 mins than predicted.
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Other cards in this set

Card 2

Front

What is a self-serving bias?

Back

An unrealistic positive view of the self, which can be shown in situational attribution of negative events and personal attribution of positive events.

Card 3

Front

Why do we attribute positive outcomes to dispositional factors and negative outcomes to situational factors?

Back

Preview of the front of card 3

Card 4

Front

How did Stevens & Jones' (1976) work show a defensive attribution pattern?

Back

Preview of the front of card 4

Card 5

Front

How do we protect ourselves from self-esteem damaging feedback?

Back

Preview of the front of card 5
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