PSYC 307 Chapter Notes - Chapter 7: Learned Helplessness, Social Cost, Social Comparison Theory
Document Summary
Eg. difference in american vs. japanese ( "how can you expect them to keep trying if you"re telling them that they"re already good enough?"") ways of motivating students. Self-enhancement is the motivation to view oneself positively. Research reveals that one important reason for self-serving biases (tendencies for people to exaggerate how good they think they are) is because motivated to view oneself positively. People are quite accurate about their standing when encountered incontrovertible evidence, but in its absence we"re likely to interpret evidence in most favourable way/round upward. When experiences aren"t providing much to feel good about, people have different strategies to feel good: Downward social comparison (comparing own performance with the performance of someone who"s doing worse; vs. upward social comparison ) Compensatory self-enhancement (acknowledges failure but think about excellence in other areas) Discounting (reducing perceived importance of the domain in which you performed poorly)
