PSYC14H3 Chapter Notes - Chapter 8: Meta-Analysis, Solomon Asch, The Strongest
Document Summary
Self-enhancement is the motivation to view oneself positively. Research (with north americans) reveals that people have a strong need to view themselves positively. First, you can see evidence of this motivation when you look at measures of self-esteem. Self-esteem is the positivity of your overall evaluation of yourself: when people are asked to complete a self-esteem measure, the vast majority are found to have high self-esteem. You can also see evidence for self-enhancement motivations in measures of self-serving biases. Self-serving biases are tendencies for people to exaggerate how good they think they are. Study demonstrated self-serving biases by asking american college professors to evaluate how good they were at being a professor ! 94% said they were better than the average professor. Research has revealed that one important reason people have such biased views of themselves is that they are motivated to view themselves positively.
