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5: The Nature, Origins, & Functions of the Self

Terms in this set (36)

self-concept
a person's knowledge about him or herself, including one's own traits, social identities, and experiences
ego
the aspect of self that directs one's thoughts and actions
social identity theory
the theory that people define and evaluate themselves largely in terms of the social groups with which they identify
social role theory
the theory that gender differences in behavior, personality, and self-definition arise because of a long history of role distribution between the sexes and error-prone assumptions that those roles are essential to men and women's nature
self-schema
an integrated set of memories, beliefs, and generalizations about a personally important attribute that defines the self
working self-concept
a set of self-aspects that are currently activated by situational cues and strongly influence thoughts, feelings, and action in the moment
solo status
a sense that one is unique in some specific manner in relation to other people in the current environment
symbolic interactionism
the perspective that people use their understanding of how others view them as the primary basis for knowing and evaluating themselves
looking glass self
the idea that others reflect back to us (much like a looking glass, or mirror) who we are by how they behave towards us
appraisals
what other people think about us
reflected appraisals
what we THINK other people think about us
social comparison theory
the theory that people come to know themselves partly by comparing themselves with similar others
downward comparison
a comparison of oneself with those who are worse off
upward comparison
a comparison of oneself with those who are better off
better than average effect
the tendency to rank oneself higher than most people on positive attributes
self-perception theory
the theory that people sometimes infer their attitudes and attributes by observing their behavior and the situation in which it occurs
facial feedback hypothesis
the idea that changes in facial expression elicit emotions associated with those expressions
two-factor theory of emotion
the theory that people's emotions are the product of both their arousal level and how they interpret that arousal based on contextual cues
misattribution of arousal
inadvertent ascription of arousal resulting from one source to a different source
excitation transfer theory
the idea that leftover arousal caused by an initial event can intensify emotional reactions to a second, unrelated event
self-regulation
a set of processes for guiding one's thoughts, feelings, and behavior to reach desired goals
self-awareness theory
the theory that aspects of the self - one's attitudes, values, and goals - will be most likely to influence behavior when attention is focused on the self
self-discrepancy theory
the theory that people feel anxiety when they fall short of how they OUGHT to be but feel sad when they fall short of how they ideally WANT to be
expectancy-value theory
the theory that effort is based on the value or desirability of the goal, multiplied by the person's assessment of how likely it is that she will be able to attain the goal
auto-motive theory
the theory that even subtle exposure to goal-related stimuli can automatically activate a goal and guide behavior
action identification theory
the theory that explains how people conceive of action - their own or others' - in ways that range from very concrete to very abstract
construal level theory
the theory that people focus more on concrete details when thinking about the near future and focus more on abstract meaning when thinking about the distant future
affective forecasting
predicting one's emotional reactions to potential future events; these predictions are often inaccurate
functional magnetic resonance imagery (fMRI)
a scanning technique that provides information about the activity of regions of the brain when people perform certain cognitive or motor tasks
ironic processing
the idea that the more we try NOT to think about something, the more those thoughts enter our mind and distract us from other things
monitor
the effortless mental process that is on the lookout for signs of unwanted thoughts
operator
the effortful mental process that pushes any signs of the unwanted thoughts out of consciousness
ego depletion
the idea that ego strength becomes depleted by extended bouts of self-control
cognitive reappraisal
the cognitive reframing of a situation to minimize one's emotional reaction to it
implementation intentions
mental rules reminding us to respond to a cue in the situation with a goal-directed behavior
self-regulatory perseveration theory of depression
the theory that one way in which people can fall into depression is by persistent self-focus on an unattainable goal
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