Perception of Self and Others (Ch. 3)

Self Perception

•Self-concept: who you think you are

•Our characteristics of ourselves  (“I am…”)

•How is our self-concept shaped?

–looking glass self: you see the image of yourself that others reveal to you

•We are more likely to believe someone if they say something we’ve heard repeatedly.

•We value others statements if we perceive them to be credible.

•Social comparison: a way of developing the self-concept by comparing yourself to peers

•Self Esteem: our evaluation of our self-concept

–How we view the characteristics of ourselves

–self esteem influences who we approach, how we act and react in communication and relationships.

•Face: Person’s positive perception of himself or herself in interactions with others.

•An image of self we present to others that we want others to accept and confirm.

•Impression Management: self-presentation techniques individuals use to manipulate the impressions formed by others (face).

–Can be conscious or unconscious

–Strategies:

•Ingratiation: do favors, give compliments, find commonalities

–All in order to get someone to think positively about you

•Managing appearances: physical and emotional

•Exemplification: express dedication, commitment, or sacrifice

•Supplication – appearing inept or infirm to elicit help and nurturance from others.

•Aligning actions: attempts to define apparently questionable conduct as actually in line with cultural norms

• Self perception effects: 

–How we talk to ourselves and what we say to ourselves

–How we talk about our selves with others

–How we talk about others with ourselves

–How we communicate with others

•Interpersonal perception: a series of processes whereby you select, organize, and interpret others.

–Select: the choosing of different information

•Based off of your needs, interests, and expectations

–Organize: arrange the info accordingly

–Interpret: using all that you have selected and organized, you then apply meaning to it

•Uncertainty reduction theory: When we are uncertain about things, it makes us uneasy. Because of this, we apply our own ideas on why people behave the way they do in order to make it familiar for us.

•Reducing uncertainty is particularly important in relationship development, so it’s typical to find more uncertainty reduction behavior among people when they expect or want to develop a relationship. 

•Impression formation theory: how we expand our perception of others through how they look, what they disclose, and what we hear from others.

–We form a judgment of someone without even knowing much about them.

•Physical attractiveness

–primacy effect: using what we hear/see first.

•Ex. First impressions

–recency effect: what we hear/see last is more important.

•Ex. What have you done for me lately?

•Implicit Personality Theory: beliefs and assumptions that we have about how certain traits are linked to other characteristics and behaviors.

–you bring what you’ve learned and applied them to central traits (characteristics)

–make unobservable traits out of observable ones

–you are exposed to one trait, then you assume others (what goes together)

–Halo effect: When only exposed to a few positive qualities, then you’re likely to assume they have others of the same kind.  Rapid decision-making.

•Physical attractiveness: deem someone who is good looking in a positive light.

–Horn effect: When only exposed to a few negative qualities, then you’re likely to assume they have many others.

•If you dislike a quality about someone, you’ll have a negative predisposition toward other things about them. 

Attribution: Assigning reasoning for others behavior. It helps us understand why people do what they do.  

We can emphasize influences that are:

–Stable and lasting, or

  unstable and temporary.

–Controllable, so that we can manage them, or

  uncontrollable, so there’s nothing we can do about  them.

–Internal attribute (dispositional): reason for behavior is because of the person’s character

•it’s controllable and stable

–External attribute (situational): reason for behavior is outside of the self. It’s because of the situation or circumstance

•it’s uncontrollable and unstable

–Fundamental Attribution Error: put more emphasis on the internal.

•applying too much emphasis on their character instead of the situation.

•Self-fulfilling prophecy: prediction that comes true because you act on it as if it were true.

•Self serving bias: take responsibility for positive things in their relationships, deny responsibility for negative