Transcript of Audio Lecture
Lesson three, module two,
self-knowledge continued.
Let’s begin by moving to
slide two. Self-perception theory. This is the idea that we learn about
ourselves by watching ourselves behave. If I asked you are you something,
you might recall a behavior. Well I did do this. For example, if I asked
are you a generous person, you might say well I did give money to such and
such charity this last week. Intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation. In
many relationships, there is an intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation
problem. Men who are very in love with their heterosexual partner, say
that they will do anything for the woman they love. They just don’t know
what that is. The women, on the other hand, complained that nothing is
being done, they don’t get flowers, they don’t get candy, they don’t get
the sorts of things that they want. The men implied to tell them and they
will do anything that is asked. The women refuse to do this, they say if
I tell you then it’s like you don’t mean it, you’re just following
orders. This is an example of intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation. At
the beginning of a relationship, you are intrinsically motivated to do
things for our partners, so you might just buy a card because you think of
the person or bring them back a souvenir from a trip. However, once you
are told you have to do something, then it may become extrinsic
motivation. You’re doing something in order to receive a reward or to
avoid punishment. We know that more inferences are drawn from intrinsic
behavior. If you do something of your own free will that appears to be
intrinsically motivated, then it is thought to infer something about you
as a person. Anyone who’s tried to cheer someone up is probably very well
aware of this. You used intrinsic things and they counter with extrinsic
things. For example, you use what a good person they are and what a good
parent they are and they might counter with something extrinsic. If that
were true then my children would do this or I wouldn’t be punishing them
this way.
Let’s move on to slide
three to discuss the study that explores the types of motivation. Lepper,
Green, and Nisbett in 1973 had pre-school children drawing with markers. If
you remember anything about pre-school, you know that drawing with markers
was great fun and much better than crayons. Half of the children expected
a reward; the other half did not. What they found is that there was more
play time with markers when there was not a reward expected. Reward was
extrinsic motivation and now pre-school children felt over-justified.
That is, they felt that they played with the markers for the reward, not
because it was fun, while those who did not receive a reward continued to
feel they did it intrinsically because playing with markers really is fun.
Let’s move on to slide
four. Not only do the actual behaviors that we engage in lead to
inferences but also imagined behaviors can lead to inferences as well. We
might imagine that we’ve done something and infer that we feel a specific
way about that. For example, even people who’ve never encountered an
abortion situation may be able to infer what they would do if they found
themselves with an unwanted pregnancy. This imagined behavior then allows
them to infer their attitude regarding abortion issues. You know yourself
better than anyone else. That is, you’ve been around the entire time that
you’ve been around. Therefore, you can use your own ideas about what
you’ve done in the past to infer what you might do in the future in
similar situations. However, we only do this, we only use behaviors when
internal views about personal reactions are weak. So for example most of
us know how we feel about abortion issues, but may not have strong
opinions about what kind of gum we chew. Therefore we may use behaviors
about what sorts of gum we’ve chewed in the past and how we responded to
that in order to infer what kind of gum we’re going to buy next. In
addition, if you tell someone your feelings or your thoughts, their
impressions of you have a closer match to your self-perception than if you
tell them things about yourself in terms of traits.
Let’s move on to slide
five. When discussing self-perception, rewards are part of that. In
other words, we look at intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation. However
rewards can be different from one another. There are task contingent
rewards and performance contingent rewards. So in the Nisbett study
where the children were playing with markers, that is a task contingent
reward. If they play with the markers, they receive the reward,
regardless of how well they used the markers. However, performance
contingent rewards may not undermine intrinsic motivation. For example,
if you’re paid per basket shot instead of for being part of a team, you
may continue to be intrinsically motivated to do well.
Let’s move on to slide
six. Social comparison theory. This is the idea that people learn about
and evaluate their personal qualities by comparing themselves to others.
There are two types of social comparisons; downward social comparison and
upward social comparison. Downward social comparison is when you find
someone who’s not doing quite as well as you are and engage in social
comparison with them. But you feel better in the end. Upward social
comparison is when you compare yourself to someone who’s doing better than
you are and this may lead to a decrease in your mood. If the person
is very similar to you and you engage in downward social comparison, this
can actually boost your evaluation of the self. Not only are they just
like you, but even with the same skill, same background, you’re doing
better. If they’re very different from you, this can help us to achieve a
need for distinctiveness or uniqueness, so we may compare to others who
are quite distinct from us in order to feel like we are someone special,
someone unique and not just like everyone else.
Let’s move on to slide seven.
We’ve discussed the attribution styles in the past. Now you know
that you have more knowledge about yourself and therefore you will
choose different attributions for success and failure. Here again
is the table. This will come up
repeatedly during this course and you should be very accustomed to seeing
it.
Let’s move on to slide
eight. Actor observer differences. If I asked why do you like chocolate
ice cream, you may say something about the ice cream. It’s sweet, I like
chocolate, things such as that. If I ask why does she like chocolate ice
cream, maybe referring to your mother, you may say she has a sweet tooth
or something that infers something about her as opposed to something about
the ice cream and we don’t always know why we do what we do.
Self-understanding is taught. For example you’re told why you
like something. You’re told that you don’t like something because it’s
bitter. For example, it’s very common that we’ll give children a taste of
lemon and they make the sour face and we explain to them they don’t like
it because it’s sour. Who you are also depends on who you’re with. So
this gets back to self-monitoring. When you’re with a professor, you may
be a student. When you’re at home with your spouse, then you’re a spouse
and it also depends on who’s answering the question. So if you ask
someone why they like something, the answer they give will depend on who
you are. For example, if you are an ice cream salesperson and you ask why
you like chocolate, that’s going to get a different answer than if it’s
someone who is simply a friend asking why you like chocolate ice cream.
Let’s move on to slide
nine. Social comparison. Remember we talked it can be upward and
downward, it’s not always done privately. We learn with whom we compare.
We’re told what an appropriate pool is. We’ve already discussed why bronze
medalists are happier than silver medalists. In the 1992 Olympics, they
actually evaluated videotape of their faces and found this to be true.
Social comparison can also be as simple as remembering that life could always
be worse, so as opposed to comparing to another person, we may compare to
others in the past, others we’ve known or others in general.
Let’s move to the last
slide, slide ten. Self-efficacy. This is relevant to failure. It’s the
ability that you have to believe you can or cannot do something. Remember
if you make an attribution that’s about ability or talent, this is
uncontrollable and may make you feel worse about yourself. However, if
you say it’s about effort, something that you can control, then you will
feel better about yourself. Even if you’ve done poorly, exerting more
effort will allow you to improve your performance.
This concludes lesson
three. Thank you very much.
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