PSY234 Lecture 9: The Social Self AND Person Perpcetion
2 Jun 2018
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Week 9: The Social Self
Lecture outline:
• The spotlight effect
• Self-concept
• Self-esteem
• Self-serving bias
The spotlight effect: how much do people notice us?
• We tend to be self-conscious and think others overly pay attention to our
appearance and behaviours (e.g. haircuts)
• Illusion of transparency → we also think others can easily read our concealed
emotions (e.g. when lying)
The spotlight effect (Gilovich et al. 2000)
• Procedure:
o 2-6 observers seated at table facing the door and filling-out
questionnaires
o Target arrives 5 mins late and asked to ‘put on this tshirt’ before
joining the rest
o Joins group and is seated facing them
o Experimenter says the others are too far ahead in the task and directs
target to wait outside
o Then subject told that this is an incidental memory study:
▪ How many of the people in the room would notice the t-shirt?
• People wearing the t-shirt tended to overestimate how much the t-shirt was
noticed
• Would this happen with desirable t-shirts?
• Gilovich replicated the study with desirable t-shirts (Jerry Seinfeld, Bob
Marley etc.) – stimuli was rated beforehand for desirability
o Same result – even when we want people to notice us/doing things to
make noticed, we predict we are being noticed but we are not
ACTUALLY being noticed
What we agonise over, others soon forget –
• Prosocial implications (fear of rejection)
o We are supersensitive to what others think of us
o We experience painful social emotions when we deviate (shame,
embarrassment, guilt); worry about what you have done
o These negative emotions keep us in line
• These negative emotions also communicate that we care about others e.g.
tripping in public
• Just knowing about the illusion of transparency reduces it
o Increases perceived and actual confidence in public speaking
o Gilovich found that once people had a tutorial on illusion of
transparency, they were much better at doing something that they
previously would have experienced anxiety with
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Self-Concept: Who Am I?
• The spotlight effect and the illusion of transparency illustrate the interplay
between sense of self and the social world
• Our sense of self impacts on how we perceive, remember and evaluate our
social world
How does the social self develop?
• Biological factors → inherited personality
• The roles we play → birth order, student, employee, parent, sister..
• Social identity → the groups you belong to (e.g. religion, race etc.)
o Out-group members are similar to one another
o Favour one’s in-group
o Random allocation to groups is sufficient
• Social comparisons → we evaluate ourselves against others (e.g. wealth,
intelligence)
o Downward comparisons (feel better); others who are not doing as well
as us
o Upward comparisons (feel worse); comparing yourself to people who
are better off
• Other people’s judgements
o The looking-glass self – how we define the self
o Spotlight effect
• Success and failure
o In contrast to the notion of ‘unconditional affirmation’
o Actual successful performance improves confidence and self-esteem
(e.g. academic success improves confidence in academic ability)
o William James
▪ Self esteem = successes/pretensions – achievements over our
goals
o Wood et al. 2009 “I’m a loveable person” → study looks at the idea of
unconditional affirmation and its effectiveness in improving self-
esteem
▪ P did a writing task
▪ Every time a bell rang, they would have to say “I’m a loveable
person” – repeated 16 times during a 4 min writing task →
testing to see if this improved self-esteem
▪ Rated mood states after
▪ Those with low self-esteem felt worse when stating that, high
self-esteem felt better
▪ Implications for self-help industry → someone with low self-
esteem looing for help; self-help not beneficial; need to achieve
something to improve self-esteem
Self-knowledge:
• We are often poor at explaining our behaviour
o Life satisfaction when raining or sunshine (Schwarz and Clore, 1983)
→ rang people up around the state in areas where raining and sunny;
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Lecture outline: the spotlight effect, self-concept, self-esteem, self-serving bias. The spotlight effect: how much do people notice us: we tend to be self-conscious and think others overly pay attention to our appearance and behaviours (e. g. haircuts) Illusion of transparency we also think others can easily read our concealed emotions (e. g. when lying) Stimuli was rated beforehand for desirability: same result even when we want people to notice us/doing things to make noticed, we predict we are being noticed but we are not. Self-concept: who am i: the spotlight effect and the illusion of transparency illustrate the interplay between sense of self and the social world, our sense of self impacts on how we perceive, remember and evaluate our social world. Implications for self-help industry someone with low self- esteem looing for help; self-help not beneficial; need to achieve something to improve self-esteem.
