Self-presentation is the way that we let others perceive us. The social psychology text argues that there are various methods of achieving an acceptable self-presentation. One of the ways is through self-verification, which is a method of self-presentation where we want other to perceive us by what we truly think about ourselves (Swann, 1987). Bill Swann et al. (1992) studied couples to illustrate this concept. In the study he had each member of the couple fill out a questionnaire separately about themselves and their partners. The questionnaire measured self-concept and appraisal of their spouse’s self-concept. The results support self-verification theory; partners with high self-concept were more likely to be committed to their spouses if they favored them positively. Likewise, partners with low self-concept are more likely to be committed to their spouses if the spouses rated them negatively.
A pop culture example that supports this concept is the show Maury. I never fully understood the women in the show. Why are they so attracted to these dumb guys?! After learning about the self-verification motive, it makes more sense. These girls are attracted to these guys because they treat them how they feel about themselves. This concept also helped me realize why my friends date those guys that are just not good enough. However, they may think they are good enough because they show their true colors about my friends.
References:
Swann, W.B., Hixon, J,G., and De la Ronde, C. (1992). Embracing the bitter “truth”: Negative self-concepts and marital commitments. Psychological Science, 3, 118-121.
Swann, W.B. (1987). Identity Negotiation: Where two roads meet. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53, 1038-1051.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Odd behaviors!
Ever since 2001 I haven’t been the only grandchild from my mom’s side of the family. Lucky for me, my cousin was born right at the time when I could start babysitting. I love my cousin Fer who is now 9 and his little sister Flor who is now 2. I have noticed from babysitting them that they behave much better when their parents are not around. I always thought this was weird because I don’t believe that my aunt and uncle are bad parents.
After reading our social psychology book, I found an explanation for this odd behavior! Two-factor theory of emotion states that emotion is experienced based on physiological arousal and cognitive interpretation of the arousal (Schachter & Singer, 1962). To interpret my cousins’ behavior more specifically my two year old cousin is still in the early years of walking, so sometimes she’ll fall. When I’m around I just make a funny noise and just say “Oh! Down goes baby!” however when her parents are around they freak out “Oh my gosh!! Are you ok?! Poor baby!!!” When using two-factor theory of emotion, my baby cousin reacts to my response with giggles and keeps on with her business because her heightened physiological arousal is cognitively interpreted as silly. When she sees her parents’ reactions she reacts to the fall with fear because she sees fear in her parents. So in reality her “bad behavior” or as I call it “excessive crying” is not because my aunt and uncle are bad parents, it’s because they worry about my cousins and their well being.
A second term I used to explain the life around me using social psychology is self-handicapping. According to Berglas and Jones (1978) people make excuses in anticipation of failure in order to still look good to others. When I read this description it made me think of a girl that we used to have on the swim team a few years back, let’s call her Amber. The first season I swam with Amber, I knew that she was a very good swimmer she was so good that she got a nationals cut and missed going to nationals by one person, although she didn’t make it I knew that she had a lot of potential left in her. The next year, I noticed that she was injured and sick more often and due to all of the illnesses she had to miss practice a lot and did not perform as well in meets. Then I began to notice a pattern, if she did well at the swim meet the following week she was at practice and continued to be well the rest of the week. However, if she performed poorly at the meet, she was sick the rest of the week and blamed her bad performance on the fact the she had been coming down with something. Another odd pattern that I noticed was her reactions to injuries and illnesses around her mother, she was always much worse when her mom was around. Her behavior continued to be like this until she graduated and no longer swam for college. I always wondered why she changed so much, I now realize that it’s because she was trying to make herself feel better about not being as good as she had been in the past.
References:
Berglas, S. and Jones E.E. (1978). Drug choice as a self-handicapping strategy in response to noncontingent success. Journal of personality and social psychology, 36, 405-417.
Schachter, S. and Singer, J. (1962). Cognitive, social, and physiological determinants of the emotional state. Psychological Review, 69, 379-399.
After reading our social psychology book, I found an explanation for this odd behavior! Two-factor theory of emotion states that emotion is experienced based on physiological arousal and cognitive interpretation of the arousal (Schachter & Singer, 1962). To interpret my cousins’ behavior more specifically my two year old cousin is still in the early years of walking, so sometimes she’ll fall. When I’m around I just make a funny noise and just say “Oh! Down goes baby!” however when her parents are around they freak out “Oh my gosh!! Are you ok?! Poor baby!!!” When using two-factor theory of emotion, my baby cousin reacts to my response with giggles and keeps on with her business because her heightened physiological arousal is cognitively interpreted as silly. When she sees her parents’ reactions she reacts to the fall with fear because she sees fear in her parents. So in reality her “bad behavior” or as I call it “excessive crying” is not because my aunt and uncle are bad parents, it’s because they worry about my cousins and their well being.
A second term I used to explain the life around me using social psychology is self-handicapping. According to Berglas and Jones (1978) people make excuses in anticipation of failure in order to still look good to others. When I read this description it made me think of a girl that we used to have on the swim team a few years back, let’s call her Amber. The first season I swam with Amber, I knew that she was a very good swimmer she was so good that she got a nationals cut and missed going to nationals by one person, although she didn’t make it I knew that she had a lot of potential left in her. The next year, I noticed that she was injured and sick more often and due to all of the illnesses she had to miss practice a lot and did not perform as well in meets. Then I began to notice a pattern, if she did well at the swim meet the following week she was at practice and continued to be well the rest of the week. However, if she performed poorly at the meet, she was sick the rest of the week and blamed her bad performance on the fact the she had been coming down with something. Another odd pattern that I noticed was her reactions to injuries and illnesses around her mother, she was always much worse when her mom was around. Her behavior continued to be like this until she graduated and no longer swam for college. I always wondered why she changed so much, I now realize that it’s because she was trying to make herself feel better about not being as good as she had been in the past.
References:
Berglas, S. and Jones E.E. (1978). Drug choice as a self-handicapping strategy in response to noncontingent success. Journal of personality and social psychology, 36, 405-417.
Schachter, S. and Singer, J. (1962). Cognitive, social, and physiological determinants of the emotional state. Psychological Review, 69, 379-399.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
The bad day--- Attribution Theory.
Today I had a bad day. As a result I will use attribution theory to figure out what went wrong. More specifically I will use Kelley’s covariation theory; this theory states that in order to explain behavior we must look at all the factors involved. In order to figure out why my day went bad, I will analyze the situation and see whether there is consensus, distinctiveness and consistency. The first event of my day was that I overslept. In trying to find consensus, I’d say that others would also say that this is a bad start to the day. Therefore, it has a high level of consensus. When applying the concept of distinctiveness, I’d say that I don’t usually react to sleeping in a bad way. If we want to look at other stimuli I usually don’t act to many stimuli in a negative way. I would give today’s situation a high level of distinctiveness. Finally, to look at the consistency of the situation, I would not have thought of sleeping in as a bad thing if it had been on a different day. For example, if I had slept in on Sunday I would not have minded at all. Therefore, this situation has a low consistency and is attributed to the circumstance. Therefore, I blame my bad day on the circumstance that I overslept and I was thrown off the whole day. Hopefully, I will not sleep in again on a school day.
References:
Kelley, H.H. (1967). Attribution in social psychology. Nebraska Symposium on Motivation, 15, 192-238.
References:
Kelley, H.H. (1967). Attribution in social psychology. Nebraska Symposium on Motivation, 15, 192-238.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
