INDIVIDUAL SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

PSYCHOLOGY
Focuses on human
behavior
methods of science
you just simply describe a
certain stimulus
ex: I see a coin by other people or
Focuses on human
behavior: thoughts,
feelings
Methods of science
you make judgment about
things as it is influenced
societys standards
(ex: value of coins)

Gordon Allport:

- The scientific field that focuses on the thoughts, feelings, and behavior which is influenced by actual (audience),
imagined (image of mother), and implied presence of others (not throwing garbage in the mall or clean places)

Limitations:

- it is only one-way, it must be a two way process which means that yourself could also affect and influence others
through your own behavior (ex: your own point of view and opinions)

Where is the social in social psychology?

- influenced by culture (European are more collectivist that is why their books are more social compared to American
which focuses on individual psychology)

SOCIOLOGY PSYCHOLOGY
Unit of analysis: groups Individual
and different institutions
Example: suicide cases

Societys norms on Depression- inability to

gender respond to stress

EVOLUTION OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

Long past and short history:

- it started from philosophy but it only became a distinctive discipline only during the publication of the first book of
Allport

PLATO
the state controlled the
individual and encouraged
social responsibility
through social context
Socio-centered approach
or social social psychology
ARISTOTLE
Humans were naturally
sociable, a necessity
which allows us to live
together
Individual-centered
Precursor of psychological
social approach

Hegel society has inevitable links with the development of the social mind which led to the idea of group mind

Marx & Engels social class determines consciousness, choices and views (ex: capitalism: competitive, feudalism:
slaves point of view)

Aristotles point of view would lead to hedonism and utilitarianism

Hedonism ultimate motive for all the voluntary human action is the desire to experience pleasure or to avoid pain,
pleasure principle
 Jeremy Bentham explicitly described what types and qualities of pain and pleasure exist, and how human motives
can be explained through psychological hedonism

- tried to quantify hedonism through hedonic calculus or the measurement of relative gains and losses in pain and
pleasure to determine the most pleasurable action a human choose in a situation

Utilitarianism- for the good of the majority

Social Exchange theory- view that humans are always motivated by self-interest which seem to be acts of altruism
(loss of guilt/ distress)
true altruism = giving of something despite pain

- it claims that when people choose to help others, they do so ultimately because of personal benefits such as getting
rid of being distressed and conscience , egoistic

Tarde and Le Bon crowd psychology or mob psychology

- approached group processes through individual phenomena
- his book Crown 1895- how the individual changed through the influence of crowd
- crowd behavior is heavily influenced by the loss of personal responsibility of the individual (deindividuation) and the
impression of universality of behavior, both of which increase with the size of the crowd
- could be traced back to Plato

HISTORY OF THE DISCIPLINE

1.) Norman Triplett

- speed records of the cyclists: noticed that racing against each other rather than against the clock alone increased the
cyclists speeds

- repeated using children and fishing reels using two conditions : the child alone and children in pairs but working alone
to wind in a given amount of fishing line which resulted that many children worked faster in the presence of a partner
doing the same task

- moderating key is the difficulty or type of task ( e.g. if the task is easy, increase performance; if the task us difficult,
decreases performance ) and the presence of audience

- Criticisms: his experiments did not qualify as true exp. Since it lacked comparison, randomization, control group and
control of extraneous variables

2.) Wilhelm Wundt folk psychology

- to understand people you have to look at their language which is the key to understand people and how they viewed
the world
- Collective mind personality is influenced by culture and community

3.) McDougall & Ross

- McDougall - focused on instincts and emotion ; - individual as the principal unit of analysis
- Ross- influenced by Tarde and Le Bon; highlighted the group

4.) Floyd Allport

- Individual is influenced by social stimuli
- how individuals being is influenced by society (subject matter)
- mode of inquiry should be experimental
-the true establishment of social psych as a distinctive field with Allports publication of book ( how it is distinctive from
other subdisciplines)
- emphasized how the person responds to stimuli in the social environment with group merely being one of the many
stimuli

German social psychology:

- shaped by Gestalt perspective
- rejected both the European notion of group mind and the American individualist stand that groups were not real in
themselves
- social environment is made up not only of individuals but of relations between individuals having important
psychological implications
- promoted understanding of groups of social entities lead to the tradition of group processes and group dynamics
 Factors Influencing Studies in Social Psychology
- influenced research trends

A. Social and political zeitgeist- has always influenced the developments, experiments and studies of the field
mid 1930s- Great Depression, political upheavals in Europe generated by WW1 and WW2
- radical left-wing political views
- application of political activism to real-world problems
-during the political upheavals, social psychologist proposed that the scientific studies should be applied to social
issues
present: terrorism, social media
1950s US Supreme Courts decision to end up segregation (issues about racism and prejudice)
1960s- Vietnam War, political assassinations
(issues about aggression, attraction, love, helpingbehavior)

B. Pratcical use to solve social issues

- social psychology must be applicable and relevant to the zeitgeist of the times
- intergroup relations, consuming and voting behavior, leadership, propaganda, organizational behavior (similar to
political zeitgeist)
- Bystander effect- Kitty Genovese
- Robbers cave- C. Sheriff and M. Sheriff
-polarization effect: the making of a standard, terrorist

C. Presence of powerful theories and experiments

1.) Sheriffs experiment on autokinetic
- lead to the study of formation of norms
- how reality is being construed by people (the light is seemingly moving even if it is really not moving)
- some people create their own or perceived reality instead of what is real
-reality is construed, what is important is not the objective reality not the subjective/ perceived reality

2.) Philip Zimbardo shock experiment

- power over people
-how social roles influence you behave and view of the world ex: military
- Lucifer effect: people in power behave ina way that advantages the position

3.) Leon Festinger cognitive dissonance (belief and action)

- forced compliance forcing people to say or do things opposite to what they really believed in
- when we hold beliefs, attitudes or cognitions which are different, then we experience dissonance an inconsistency
that causes discomfort
- we are motivated to reduce this by either changing one of our thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes for uniformity and
consistency or selectively attending to information which supports one of our beliefs and ignores the other (selective
exposure hypothesis)

4.) Gordon Allport- - contact hypothesis

- segregation is not good for internal being ( people with color were separated from White people before)
- if theres conflict between two groups, people should be together, egalitarian in nature

D. Research Paradigms (methods)

Impact experiments: subjects feel the manipulation
- had a problem with ethics
Judgment experiment: Subjects rate
1. Aschs line experiment
- conformity
- judgment experiment(paradigm of methodology)
using the length of three lines

2. Solomon Aschs warm-cold impression

- impression formation using the adjectives of warm and cold
- warm is evaluated positively while cold is evaluated negatively

3. Tajfel- Social Identity theory

- when divided in artificial groups, prejudice results simply from the awareness that there is an out-group
- people tend to identify with the group , strong in-group preference
- individuals need to maintain a positive sense of personal and social identity which is partly achieved by emphasizing
the desirability of ones own group, focusing on distinctions between other lesser groups
- minimal group paradigm
advantage of lab experiment: people identify with the in group and thrive at the expense of the out-group

Problem:
- conflict is inevitable when people from groups identify themselves in a group
- groups in conflict have long history of conflict in real setting, but in the laboratory, it is just induced in a short
period of time
- artificiality
- dissonance (doing things against their own will)

Tenets of Social Psychology

- reality is construed by people- perceived reality is more important than objective reality

FORCES THAT LED TO DIFFERENT DEVELOPMENTS

1. Political zeitgeist
- needs and trends at that time
- social psychology needs to be relevant to the zeitgeist of the time
2. presence of powerful theories
3. research paradigms

Autokinesis, forced compliance, social identity experiments lead to ethical issues

CRISIS OF CONFIDENCE IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

1. Methodology:
* Ethics deception
* Impact experiments
* Limited subject- respondents are male-dominated, most were second year college students,
* Parochialism- limited to North American
* Lacks external validity
* Discriminative against women and people with color
2. Artificiality of the experiments
3. Relevance in terms of application of the field
4. Considered as boba psychology - more concerned with trivial and obvious
5. Reduced complex issues in the laboratory reductionism
- phenomenon is explained in lower level of analysis
- complex social phenomenon is difficult to reduce into independent variable
ex: intergroup conflict through minimal group paradigm wherein subjects are divided into two groups and
engage in competition
6. Cultural differences
- consider cultural factor
- findings were only applicable to North America
e.g. attribution theory
- Asian countries are not externally attributed
- always replicated in N. America
Western: personal attributes
Asian: situation
success: intrinsic
failure: extrinsic
7. Attributed to methodology used
- preference to experimentations
experimental realism vs. mundane realism
ER : participants are fully engaged and participating
MR: attempt to superficial manipulation of reality in day to day events
- history, context when we talk about social behavior, demand characteristics, good subjects
- difficult to reduce factors in the laboratory
-reductionism- social phenomenon is explained in terms of individual feelings
8. Nothing new to offer- what they offer is the obvious
counterintuitive researches trend that time to counter the obvious
hindsight bias: I knew it all along feeling ( we sometimes blame ourselves)
- things become clearer after they occur
 - lack peoples views are not always reliable
lay dispositionism-tendency of people to view others based on their dispositions or views

9. No attempt to look into peoples head internal process

- due to behaviorism
cold cognition: attribution, impression, memory, perception
hot cognition: emotions/ feelings, affect, motivation
( social psychology delve into both cognitions)

Themes of Social Psychology:

1. Multiculturalism
- considering cultural factors
internet created inter-equate oneness across cultures
US universalism US

History of Psychology: North America

Parochialism question of universality of findings
- bias towards own race, language
-recognition of cross-cultural differences

2. Evolutionary Psychology
- subtle manipulations subjects do not experience the impact experiments
e.g. Prisoners game
wall street ( more into competition) vs. community games (engage in cooperation & collectivism)
Persuasion experiment:
In the long term it leads to the question of free will does it exist (?)
Social psychology studies no free will
-manipulations are everywhere, subject is influence without even knowing it
- librarian (positive) vs. addict (negative) in a film

Channel overwhelming paradigm:

Gilbert and Gibson experiment- Asian vs. Caucasian
- when people are too busy, no time to think of prejudice
- judgment experiments are in the current use
- social relevance demand for explanation

European psychology more Gestalt in nature

phenomenology subjective experiences
North American psychology emergence of behaviorism ( one of the many causes of crisis in confidence)
analogs of social situation in lab study inter-group conflicts in experiments

Onset of Cognitive Dissonance theory:

- Dissonance was an explanation for things which are counterintuitive (the usual things that people know do not work)
boba psychology: - obvious , people already know this
- reached an empirical dead end
- people are more likely to do things opposite of their own belief
- Bern: Self- perception theory
people look at own behavior then experiments

Problems with method:

ethics
deception
infliction of physical and psychological harm

Comeback of evolutionary psychology:

- uncertain methods
- attraction, aggression
Now, the assumption of social psychology is it is construed by reality. It is difficult to be a neutral observer.

Major theme in social psychology:

- groups who have major influence in the field
- political zeitgeist: terrorism, virtual relationships, technology
- people are cognitive micers
- nave realism- isomorphism between subjective reality and objective reality
subjective: wanting others to see the world according to how we want them see it
most conflicts arise (awareness of nave realism = tolerance of other people)
difficult to be objective: no such thing as neutral observer
to be able to look at people- see how they view the world

Crisis of confidence led to cognitive revolution in social psychology:

1. What they stand for
2. More open to methodologies
3. New method paradigms

Cognitive revolution- methods in cogni were imported to social psychology e.g. Irvings study of persuasion
Process methods they try to look inside peoples brains and what goes in their mind
Ex: the experiments of fear and its possible ability to change people.

Process methodologies in social psychology:

- taking into account what happens inside peoples heads ( cognitions, affect/ feelings/ emotions)
- based on experimental designs

Brunswick lens model:

- (independent variable) distant stimuli to be perceived by a person
- mediation receptors
- neural processing- receive information to the brain
-construction processing of information is according to knowledge structures or ongoing feelings and past
experiences
- percept
- Dependent variable

traditional experiment model : IV person DV

Information processing:
a. priming a cue is made salient into one context and impact is determined in another context
- manipulation is not related
Mood priming:
happy mood easily influenced ( snacks during elections)
Sad mood critical
- participant are made to experience adventure obstacles then shown a video clip with different label: adventurous guy
and love to travel guy
absence or presence of snake presentation of marriage

b. encoding manipulation is related to IV

ex: study on stereotype
what you ate about to see ( video presentation) is an adventurous guy vs. guy who loves to travel

c. channel overwhelming paradigm

- dichotic listening task
Persuasive speech to right ear
song to left ear

d. delay technique
- you have the manipulations measure DV after number of minutes vs. immediate recall

Results of the crisis of confidence:

1. cross cultural researches
2. Use of judgment experiments
3. Use of process methodologies ( looking into peoples mind)
4. Use of other field methods: correlations, surveys
5. Recognition of impact of unconscious and how it influences the view of the world
 6. Effort to study group
7. Effort to study hot cognition
8. Re-examine social phenomenon
- love, aggression, mating in evolutionary psychology ( monogamy is not predisposed to men)
empirical evidence (?)
9. Focus on self

Studies:
1. split- plot design
2. visual attention
detection of gaze
duration of gaze
( using eye tracker)
western culture: lovers look at each other longer
Philippines: shorter duration, different context
3. anorexia controlled by parents control eating
habits panick of parents ( getting even with the controller control parents
4. bolemia sexually / physically abused during childhood
eat to feel good vomit due to own self-disgust
5. comparison group true experiment
6. voting behavior
field studies quasi experiments
physical touch from a running politician would unconsciously lead to voting
Velcro personality politicians attached with negative or positive publicity

INC attack of religious freedom

* if groups is perceived to be attacked, there is a tendency to unite

Analysis of moderating variable

- mixed designs (split-plot)
- entails interaction effects
ex: relationship of attractiveness and behavior (liking)
moderated by gender of the target and gender of the perceiver

Gender of Gender of Liking

the target the
Perceiver
A1 Male Male Low
attractive
Male Female High
Female Male High
Female Female Low

Analysis of mediating variable

- causal analysis
- x mediating y : x and y are related because of its relationship with a mediating variable
- zero relationship between x and y because its relationship with the mediating variable, they cancel each other out
ex:

x>a C x<a
M:
X: bullied Y: self-
intelligence esteem

Effect of x and y controlling the mediating variable (C prime , partial effect factor)
C is the residual effect which leads to zero relationship
Process experiments:
-taking into consideration the organism (whats going on inside peoples head emotional center, cognition or affect)

Example: Mod/ Med

message attitudes, norms pro environmental behavior
Variable
Levels of Depende
Milgram study used deception
IV nt
Negative effects: begins to question who he or she really is because of yielding to the authority
- negative view on self due to capability to hurt someone in the presence of authority
- infliction of psychological harm
this can be prevented in online experiment by turning off the computer to protect ego / self

Online experiment:
Advantages:
- bigger and simultaneous respondents
- diverse demographics across the globe
- accuracy: minimize errors in data collection
- anonymity
- free from experimenter bias

Disadvantages:
- extraneous variables
- bias respondents
-multiple submissions

Diary Studies
- you call the respondents through gadgets and ask questions
Problem: willing subjects but does not know how to describe it
- interviews are retrospective, negative things are the ones remembered
evolutionary: our brains are predisposed to remember the threatening stimulus

Socio-cultural Neuro Psych

- ultimate revolutionism
- looks inside the brains of people to explain social phenomena

PET SCANS: invasive because it used injections

MRI- only the structures of the brain
FMRI- used in social psychology, which part of the brain uses oxygen
prefrontal cortex: affinity with other people
fusiform area: recognition of faces
EEG- evoke potential (used for intelligence)
If bright, only small areas of the brain will function
beta waves: busy
delta: sleep
alpha: relax

Schizophrenia: Brocas area , you hear your own brain talking

SELF
- if you wrote about social role : social desirability and self-enhancement

William James
- pioneered the idea of self
- notion was not studied in Psychology because of Positivism (connected with Behaviorism), no clear empirical
evidence and cant be empirically tested

I- initiator of action
me- associates with self-concept, the object
- characteristics of the self
self- a point of continuity , enduring
social self- the one that changes dependent on social environment
emotional identification it could be the things or people you have
- identification through relationships( other people are part of who you are)

George Herbert
Symbolic interactionism
- looking to other people to define who you are
- you cannot extricate yourself from how others see you
Cooley
- others are the mirror, they will say who you are
- psychological mirrors which sometimes does not cohere with reality

Spotlight effect-when you get inside a room, you feel that people are trying to decipher or criticize who they are
wrong notion: people are too busy to look at you

resurgence of interest in the 1960s

- ephemeral (transient) aspects of self

Goffmans Dramaturgy
- everyone is playing roles in our day to day interaction depending on the people around
- the sense of who you are and what you are can shift (enhancement so that others can accept you)
ex: with friends you cannot offend them , difficult to hold on
parents they are always there

Snyder (self-monitoring theory)

A. Self
reflexivity what makes us humans
a sense of awareness of who we are
self concept is not equal to self
self > self concept

self : I initiator of actions, sense of control over things

self-concept: me object of descriptions

I came first than me

me sense of pride, shame (self-conscious emotion)

Knowing who you are through:

1. social comparison- comparing yourself with a standard (internal)
actual vs. ideal
actual vs. ought (moral should be)
- could trigger intense emotions to the point that you dislike your own self

2. introspection
3. Mirror

Impact of self-awareness:
- intensification affect
- engage in moral behavior

Why people does not engage in self-awareness:

- too busy meeting deadlines
- painful process
memory is needed for the unity of self
B. Social Self
C. Executive Self

________________________________________________________

Reflexive consciousness
Interpersonal Component
Social Component ME
Executive Function ____________ I

me limited on recognition and not on reflexivity , development is also not unique to humans
- develops during the 18th month for children (average)

I - it appears first than me during childhood

- it develops from primary circular reactions (ex: the child may accidentally such his/her thumb then later intentionally
repeats the action i.e. thumb sucking)
- then, development focuses on the external environment to see how people react

Self-awareness (David and Wickland)

- binary process which is aversive in nature
binary : they can focus internally or externally
aversive because we dont meet our standards which leads us to private self-awareness

Private Self-awareness : looking into your own self, feeling and standards
- follow your own compass
- when there is discrepancy between actual and the ideal self : emotional distress ( low intensity emotions i.e. sadness)
-when there is discrepancy between actual and ought:
experiences high intensity emotions (i.e. angry, frustration)

What happens when you usually engage in this?

- regulatory process of improving yourself
- it could trigger act of rumination, depression, intensity affect
- leads you to be more consistent (consistency between belief and actions)
- more moral actions

Public Self-awareness: social standards

- your need to affiliate is not met ( ex: ostracism /being excluded)
- too conscious about what you look
- you dont want to be evaluated negatively by other people

What happens when you usually engage in this?

- regulatory process (ex: standards of beauty and body)
- affected with evaluation apprehension (spotlight effect)
- high level of conformity

Scheir and Buss:

- when you usually engage in self-awareness it becomes a trait which is called self-consciousness

people who are concerned with their health has high level of self- awareness

ME A . the self as mental representation

semantic abstract or generalization episodic specific event that
will support such generalization
- it is seen as a schema ( abstraction about all your experiences, semantic component of yourself
- episodic: specific event in your life which would define who you are
ex: I am assertive but, no episodic memory
- when it is evaluated, it is all or nothing
B. self as an associative method self is a node in the brain where several characteristics is attached
ex:

Not so Self Good

Libera Good
When it is simulated, activation is
one by one (spread of activation)
l friend
Schema is more semantic while associative is more on episodic

C. Self is personal or social

-multi-faceted
-Bahala na God is there: secondary control

________________________________________________________Mindfulness non-judgmental, neutral (both positive and

negative emotions)l, do not dwell on negative emotions only
- correlated to high self-esteem and positivity

self-awareness- you compare yourself to a standard (what ought and should be); an evaluation of yourself which
focuses more on negative sides
- however, people tend to perseverate and ruminate only on the negative aspects

Who we are is due to our autobiographical memories which presupposes self

episodic: part of yourself that you have clear memories
right medial pre-frontal cortex: usually associated with negative emotions
transcranial magnetic stimulation : treatment for depression
semantic: abstract knowledge, traits
left medial pre-frontal cortex- happy hemisphere

Autobiographical memory is a memory system consisting of episodes recollected from an individual's life, based on
a combination of episodic (personal experiences and specific objects, people and events experienced at particular time
and place) and semantic (general knowledge and facts about the world) memory

Personal Self- an individuals unique attributes

Social self- composed of interpersonal, group identity and collective self
interpersonal the roles that you play
group identity- part of certain group but, you do not define yourself by those characteristics
- you might embrace it or not ( if you embrace it, it becomes your collective self)
- being more salient / situationary (ex: one boy among girls)
- collective self- personal attributes based on the characteristics of the group

Antagonistic one is salient while the other is not

Active self- knowledge- self in consciousness, part of self subjected to be consistent all the time
Phenomenal self- subjected to consistency demands

Stored self- knowledge- false beliefs about who you are

P.T. Barnum effect: tendency of people to simply accept descriptions about who they are (ex: cards,
horoscopes)

Cognitive affective crossfire- disparity between the cognitive part and what you feel ( ex: someone says that you are
intelligent, but you feel different, however, you like being called intelligent)
- mind says no but heart says yes

Implicit self unconscious: you are not aware of it

- automaticity, no time to dleiberate
Explicit self-what you ruminate in consciousness
- deliberative self, conscious, descriptions of self
- usually uses pen and paper method
 some times, there is a discrepancy between implicit and explicit which leads to self aggrandizement
self aggrandizement : exaggerate the negative or positive attributes
- exaggerate the explicit Dont you know who I am
- positive illusions ( explicit > implicit
- explicit: positive ; implicit : negative

Self- knowledge
metacharacteristics:
1. Valence ( + - ) self-esteem
2. Importance of conception of you are
3. Certainty
4. Clarity
5. Stability
6. Organization
Problems with Millenials:
absence of self-regulation or discipline
ex: using internet until 4 a.m.
solution: parents should set some rules

Top-down motion of Self-esteem

- global perception of yourself and it would spillover to small things
Bottom- up motion of Self-esteem
- specific achievements positive / negative view of self

Predictors of self-esteem in teenagers (US)

1. Academic
2. Approval from others
3. Family
4. Competition
5. Virtue

Vulnerable narcissist- they feel entitled that people should respect (high view of self inside) but, you are shy,
introvert in the outside
- trigger problems in relationships

Self-evaluation
- compare yourself to people close to you especially if a certain trait is important in your self-concept
- feels bad
- if it is not important : you bask in the glory of the other
- determines the adjustment of your life

agentic characteristics- abilities, self- competence

communal characteristics- relationships with other people
affected by relational break-ups ( heartaches)
threatens clarity, certainty and stability of self
Results to reinvention of self (ex: cutting of hair)

Organization of Self:
simple - self-concept is redundant, no diversity
ex: mom is nurturing, caring
If she losses her child, self concept is affected
Complex: diverse concept of who you are
- one stressor will not break you

some peoples self- concept are well-integrated:

negative and positive are integrated with each other,
while others, compartmentalization
compartmentalization : conflicting social identities
- co-existence
ex: politicians : religious but corrupt
________________________________________________________
During problematic period of life:

High Self-esteem Low Self-esteem

Dwell on the their Dwell on deficiencies
strengths
High in self-knowledge: Low self-respect
extensive ex: In marriage during
- you can say so many extramarital affairs
things about yourself
- clarity

ex: during break-ups

people try to question
themselves and less clear
Self-serving bias: Success: external
failure- external failure : internal
success- internal ex: people who are
personally assaulted
they blame themselves
- mechanism for a sense
of control
People with high self-esteem are more emotionally stable (collectivists)

Asian will not say I am beautiful but they will agree by negation of the negative I am not ugly

Motives of the Self:

1. Self-enhancement (self-worth and agency)
- not because you want people to see you in the positive light
- when you self-enhance, it is a marker about your social world and competency
- the motive of the self is communion and agency
- the better than average effect (be better than everyone)
a. Self-worth
- self-enhancement is a barometer of inclusion in the social area, you are accepted by others
- If you feel bad about yourself, you think that people would also see you as bad
- narcissistic high self-esteem but the basis is fragile thus, they feel a sense of entitlement I deserve respect

b. Agency / competency
Self-affirmation theory: people strive to have High self-esteem, it serves as a resource to our stressors in life as
they focus on their strength, efficacy to deal with their lives (resiliency)
high resiliency- high thinking of dealing the stressors in life

- self affirmation theory could also be a motive of coherence: to make the world more predictable you give structures

2. Self-verification (coherence)
- motive is coherence
- coherence is different from consistency
coherence: enduring notion of who you are
-correspondence of who you are and the events happening outside and inside your own self
ex: battered women stays long in the relationship as it verifies how small their salves are
- Swann: self-verification theory: when you have doubts, you look for appraisals
example: psychologist excited for telling who they are, palm reading
- those who are uncertain, seek objective diagnosis
when youre too certain, you verify
self concept (-) : you will embrace negative feedback (they would be problematic if someone says positive since there
is a discrepancy about what you believe)
self concept (+) : you will embrace positive feedback

- Security of Maslow
consistency: one logically follows the other
terror management theory:
- high self-esteem serves as a buffer against our fear of death
high self esteem people are unaffected with mortalitys salience
when mortality is made salient, people will see more positive aspects of their self
religious people even if mortality is salient, they are unaffected