SOC 104 Lecture Notes - Lecture 25: Santa Barbara City College, Social Comparison Theory
Document Summary
One way of feeling good about ourselves is to distort or exaggerate our positive qualities. It seems we are caught between wanting to view ourselves in the most possible light and wanting an accurate assessment of what we are really like. Self-enhancement: wanting to feel good about ourselves, regardless of the facts. One way of boosting our self-esteem is to hold unrealistically positive views of ourselves, a tendency known as self-enhancement. Example: when canadian participants received feedback that they had performed worse than the average student, they needed greater proof that this had been the case than when they received feedback that they had performed better than the average student. Japanese students found it easy to believe that they had performed poorly but hard to believe that they had performed well. Self-verification: wanting to know the truth about ourselves. It can be unsettling and confusing to have our views of ourselves disconfirmed ;
