PS270 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Positive Illusions, Motivation, Basking In Reflected Glory
Document Summary
Intrinsic motivation: the desire to engage in an activity because we enjoy it, or find it interesting: extrinsic motivation: the desire to engage in an activity because of external rewards or pressures. Social comparison and self-esteem: social comparison can also affect how we feel about ourselves, upward comparison: comparisons made to someone better-off than us, downward comparison: comparisons made to someone worse-off than us, mr. clean and mr. Role models: people who demonstrate outstanding abilities: will they be motivating or discouraging, goal of self-improvement. Self-enhancement: goal of enhancing positive self-views through social comparison, seek downward, avoid upward, people can selectively seek downward comparison, diary study, they can even invent worse-off others, cancer patients. In general, people seem motivated to: defend or protect their positive self-views, enhance their self-views, people regularly behave in ways that will uphold their positive self-views i. e. downward comparisons, denigrating the comparisons process itself.
