1. Exploring Social Psychology by David G. Myers
Self-Concept: Who Am I?
& Self serving bias
Module 3&4
Copyright © 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

2. HE WHO KNOWS OTHERS IS LEARNED, HE WHO KNOWS HIMSELF IS ENLIGHTENED!.
HE WHO KNOWS OTHERS IS LEARNED,
HE WHO KNOWS HIMSELF IS ENLIGHTENED!
LAO-TZU

3. Self-Concept
Who am I? I am…

4. Self-Schemas
Athlete
Father
Husband
Photographer

5. Self-Reference Effect
When information is relevant to our self-concepts, we process it quickly and remember it well.
- We see ourselves on center stage

6. A Basic Fact of Life
Our sense of self is at the center of our worlds.

8. Self-Knowledge Explaining our behavior Predicting our behavior
Predicting our feelings
Self-analysis
- Dual attitudes (Implicit and explicit)
- The mental processes that control our social behavior are distinct from the mental processes through which we explain our behavior

9. ATTITUDES Explicit Implicit Consciously controlled
Change with training
Implicit
Automatic
Change slowly

10. Self-Knowledge
Research on the limits of our self-knowledge has two practical implications:
Self-reports are often untrustworthy
Sincerity is no guarantee of validity

11. Self-serving bias
Most of us positively evaluate ourselves. Even low self-esteem people respond to statements such as: “I have good ideas.” With a qualifying adjective such as: “sometimes.” The self-serving bias is one of social psychology’s most firmly established findings.

12. Attributions for positive and negative events
Most of us attribute our success to ourselves, our failure to our environment or to situational factors.

13. .
Athletes attribute victory to their skill, defeats to bad breaks, bad referee calls, the other team’s super ordinary efforts, etc. On insurance forms, car drivers have described their accidents in words such as: “An invisible car came from nowhere, struck my car and vanished.” “As I reached an intersection, a hedge sprang up, obscured my vision and I did not see the other car.” “A pedestrian hit me and went under my car.”

14. .
Ross and Sicoly found that young Canadian married couples usually claimed more credit for cleaning the house and caring for the children than their spouses credited them for.
Fiebert: Husbands estimated that they did more of the housework than their wives. The wives estimated that they did 2X the housework their husbands did.
Gray and Silver: Most divorced people blame their partner for the breakup and view themselves as victim rather than at fault.

15. Implications for management
Managers usually blame their unit’s poor performance on worker’s lack of ability, workers are more likely to blame the unit’s poor performance on inadequate supplies, excessive work load, difficult co-workers, ambiguous assignments.
Impression management!!

16. Students demonstrate self-serving bias
After receiving a good examination grade, students who did well take personal credit. They say the examination is a valid measure of their ability. Those who do poorly criticize the examination.

17. Most of us see ourselves as better than average
Most of us see ourselves as better than average. (This of course is a statistical impossibility—only half of us can be “better than average.”)
· Most business people see themselves as more ethical than the average businessperson. · 90% of all managers rate their performance as superior to their peers. · In Australia, 86% of people rate their job performance as above average, only 1% rate their job performance as below average. · Most people see themselves as less prejudiced and as more fair than others. · Most drivers see themselves as safer and more skilled than the average driver. This is true even for those who have been hospitalized for accidents. · Most of us see ourselves as more intelligent than average.

18. .
· Most Americans see themselves as better looking than average. · Most adults believe that they support their aging parents more than their brothers or sisters do. · Most people think they will live longer than is average. · 12% of Americans feel old for their age, but 66% think they are young for their age.

19. Q
Please rate yourself with regard to your “ability to get along with others.”

20. .
One survey of 829,000 students asked them to rate themselves on “ability to get along with others.” (This is of course a general, subjective and desirable trait.) · 0% rated themselves below average in “ability to get along with others.” · 60% rated themselves in the top 10% · 25% saw themselves in the top 1%

21. We give more importance to things we are good at.
Those who receive “AA” in a computer science course place a higher value on being a computer-literate person. Those who do poorly are more likely to see computer savvy people as geeks and to view computer skills as less important to their self-image.

22. Unrealistic optimism about future events
Students perceive themselves as more likely than classmates to: · Get a good job · Have a high salary · Own a home

23. .
Students perceive themselves as less likely than classmates to: · Develop a problem with drinking too much alcohol · Have a heart attack before age 40 · Be fired from a job · Get AIDS

24. Perloff
Unrealistic optimism increases our vulnerability. It can lead us to take unnecessary risks and not to consider taking some reasonable precautions.

25. False consensus effect.
When our behaviors don’t measure up to our ideals, we reassure ourselves by thinking that such shortcomings are common:
“May be I cheated on my girlfriend, but everybody cheats on their girlfriends.” “Everybody cheats on taxes.” “Everybody smokes.”

26. On matters of talent and special ability, a false uniqueness effect often occurs.
For example: Those who are really good at basketball will underestimate the number of those who are as good at basketball as they are. Those who are good at foreign languages will underestimate the number of others who are good at foreign languages as they are.

27. Culture’s Consequences
Self-serving bias seems to exist less in more collective cultures, but still is present.