PSYC 333 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Positive Illusions, Stage Fright, Word Association

• School: McGill University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 333
• Professor: Arash Abizadeh

Document Summary

There is a strong desire to have a positive self view, demonstrated by: Strong desire for others to see us positively (may make us override important views of the self) Biased evaluations when we compare ourselves to others e. g. better-than-average effect. Biased evaluations when we compare ourselves to our self. Temporal comparisons (wilson & ross, 2000, 2001, 2002) They argue that these kinds of temporal comparisons to past selves are a way we can maintain positive self views of our self. We can think of the self as a number of different selves over time: when we make comparisons we can compare ourselves to who we were yesterday, last month, last year, etc. We often compare to similar or superior others. Becomes difficult to maintain a positive self view if there is no/little difference between you and another. Temporal comparison, especially to past selves, are often downward and therefor feel safer.