Chapter_5-Social_Psycholog..docx

Self-Concept: The content of the self; that is, our knowledge about who we are. Known aspect of the self. Content of the self. Self-Awareness: The act of thinking about ourselves. These two aspects combine to create a coherent sense of identity. Independent View of the Self: A way of defining oneself in terms of one?s own internal thoughts, feelings, and actions and not in terms of the thoughts, feelings, and actions of other people. In my Western cultures (value independence and uniqueness).The squeaky wheel gets the grease. ?American proverb Interdependent View of the Self: A way of defining oneself in terms of one?s relationships to other people; recognizing that one?s behavior is often determined by the thoughts, feelings, and actions of others. Many Asian and other non-Western cultures (value connectedness and interdependence between people).The nail that stands out gets pounded down. ?Japanese proverb As contact between cultures increases, differences between cultures decreases. (Negative correlation) Women have relational interdependence; focus more on their close relationships, such as how they feel about their spouse or child.Men have more collective interdependence; focus on their memberships in larger groups, such as the fact that they are Americans or that they belong to a fraternity. Introspection: The process whereby people look inward and examine their own thoughts, feelings, and motives. I just think about myself. Examine the inside information that you and you alone, have about your thoughts, feelings and motives. Actually, people spend very little time thinking about themselves. Self-Awareness Theory: The idea that when people focus their attention on themselves, they evaluate and compare their behavior to their internal standards and values. We become self-conscious. Become objective, judgmental observers of ourselves, seeing ourselves as an outside observer would. Causal Theories: Theories about the causes of one?s own feelings and behaviors; often we learn such theories from our culture (e.g. ?absence makes the heart grow fonder?) 14. The variable a researcher measures to see if it is affected in the experiment is called the: Answered-dependent variable; correct answer-independent variable