Social Psychology Chapter 2 The Self Study Questions Fall 2019
1. Describe the spotlight effect and the illusion of transparency.
 the spotlight effect is the belief that others are paying more attention to our appearance and
behavior than they really are. It is when we believe that everyone is paying attention to us.
 the illusion of transparency is when the illusion that our concealed emotions leak out and
can be easily read by others.
2. Describe self-esteem, self-schema, social comparison, and the looking glass self. How do we
perceive our competitor in order to protect our self-concept? How does low self-esteem
predispose us to react to other’s expectations? What unattractive behaviors are associated
with high self-esteem? low self-esteem?
 self- esteem- a person’s overall self- evaluation or sense of self-worth
 self-schema- beliefs about self that organize and guide the processing of self-relevant
information
 social comparison- when we compare ourselves to other’s abilities and opinions
 the looking glass- our reflections of how we think we appear to others.
 We protect our self-concept by perceiving the competitors as advantaged. When we have
low self-esteem, we believe that we do not reach other’s expectations. An unattractive
behavior associated with high self-esteem is that sometimes most gang leaders and people in
jail have high self -esteem. With low self-esteem is that they are abuse drugs.
3. Compare individualism and collectivism. Describe how conservatives and progressives are
both collectivists and individualists.
 individualist- to be independent by habit and in control of your own thoughts and feelings
 collectivism- to put the thoughts and feelings of others above your own
 conservatives and progressives can be both collectivities and individualist by believing in
two different things. Like they believe gay marriage should be illegal but believe the wealthy
can have tax cuts.
4. Describe the planning fallacy. Who is best at predicting your behavior?
planning fallacy is the tendency to make optimistic predications concerning how long a given
task will take to complete. The person who is best at predicting our behaviors are the people
that surrounds us.
5. Describe affective forecasting, impact bias, and immune neglect.
 affective forecasting- the process of predicting our own and other happiness
impact bias- overestimating the enduring impact of emotion-causing events
immune neglect- the tendency to underestimate the speed and strength of the psychological
immune system which enables emotional recovery after bad things happen.
6. When sexually harassed, what do women expect to feel? What do they actually feel?
 they except to feel angry and want to file compliant. However, they feel fear but also have a
bad image about themselves and blame themselves. They try to avoid the harasser.
7. What is self-efficacy? Locus of control? Learned helplessness?
 self- efficacy- is one’s belief in his or her innate ability to achieve goals.
 locus of control- degree of how strongly people believe they have control over something.
 learned helplessness- one’s lack of faith in their ability to control the situation and the
feeling of hopelessness. More likely to develop learned helplessness if they have low selfefficacy.
8. What is the self-serving bias? Describe the false consensus and uniqueness effects, and
unrealistic optimism and defensive pessimism.
 self- serving bias- the tendency to perceive oneself favorably
 false consensus- the tendency to overestimate one’s opinion and one’s undesirable
behaviors.
 uniqueness effect – the tendency to underestimate one’s abilities and one’s desirable
behaviors.
 unrealistic optimism- believing that something is good when you know that it is in fact not.
For example, smoking.
 defensive pessimism- the value of anticipating problems and harnessing one’s anxiety to
motivate effective behaviors.
9. Describe self-handicapping, self-presentation, and self-monitoring.
 self- handicapping- protecting one’s self- image with behaviors that create a handy excuse
for later failure.
 self- presentation- the act of expressing oneself and behaving in ways designed to create a
favorable impression or an impression that corresponds to one’s ideas.
 self-monitoring- being attuned to the way one presents oneself in social situations and
adjusting one’s performance to create the desired impression
10. What is the impact of choice?
 the impact of choice is that it can either help us or bring us down. Sometimes an excessive
amount of choices can have. Negative effect on us. if we have a lot of choices we don’t pay
attention to the impact the choice we made has on us and on others.
11. Describe the dual attitude system. How can you change an implicit attitude?
 dual attitude system- Differing implicit (automatic) and explicit (consciously controlled)
attitudes toward the same object. Verbalized explicit attitudes may change with education and
persuasion; implicit attitudes change slowly, with practice that forms new habits
12. Describe the overlap between self-esteem and narcissism.
 self-esteem is the level of confidence one has for one’s self. Sometimes an individual has too
much self-esteem that it turns into narcissism