Social psychology

• types of self and identity (Brewer & Gardener 1996):


  individual: personal traits that distinguish you from others (friendly)

  relational: dyadic relationships that assimilate you to others (mum)

  collective: group membership (academic)
• Self-awarness

  psychological state: traits, feelings, behaviour

  realisation of being individual

  reflexive thought
• Types of self and identity: Private

  private (thoughts, feeling, attitudes) and public (social image)

  carver & scheier, 1981
• Types of self and identity: Private

  public- can be seen and evaluated by others

  • evaluation apprehension
  • enjoy success, admiration
  • adhere to social standards of behaviour
• Chronic self-awareness

  stressful- constantly aware of shortcomings

  avoidance behaviour: drinking, drugs
• Reduced self-awareness

  deinvidualisation- less aware of themselves in a group than an individual

  no monitoring of own behaviour (e.g, impulsive, reckless)
• Chronically aware- self conscious


  heightened private

  • more intense emotion
  • acurate self-perception
  • adhere to personal beliefs
• Chronically aware- self conscious


  heightened public (focuses on perception by others)

  • nervousness
  • loss of self-esteem
  • adhere to group norms, avoid embarrassment
  • concern woth physical appearance, both self and others
• Casual attribution


  an inteference process though which percievers attribute an effect to one or more causes
• Naive Scientist


  people are rational and scientific-like in making cause-effect attributions
• biased/intuitionist


  but: information is limites and driven by motivations- leads to errors and biases
• cognitive miser


  people use least complex and demanding info processing- cognitive short-cuts
• motivated tactician


  -multitasking

  -acting as motivated tactitions
• the naive scientist- Fritz Heider, 1958


  analytical, cogent, balanced, logical

  hypothesis testing

  attribute causes to effects to create a stable world that makes sense
• thee principles


  need to from a coherent view of the world (search for motives in others behaviour)

  need to gain control over the environment (search enduring properties that casue behaviour)

  need to idebtify internal (personal) vs external (situational factors)
• attributional theory


  causality of success or failure

  locus (internal/external)

  stability (e.g natural ability/mood)

  controlability (e.g effort/luck)