PSYC14H3 Chapter Notes - Chapter 8: Learned Helplessness, Amazon.Com, Nick Leeson
CHAPTER 8 – Motivation
MOTIVATIONS FOR SELF ENHANCEMENT AND SELF ESTEEM
Self enhancement – the motivation to view one’s self positively – research has shown that apparently
people have a strong need to view themselves positively – this need can be seen across a variety of
methodologies
oSelf-esteem – the positivity of the overall evaluation of yourself – when people are asked to
complete a self-esteem measure, majority are found to have a high self-esteem.
ex. found that 93% of one very large sample of European-Canadians had self esteem
scores that were above the midpoint of the scale
oSelf-Serving Biases – tendencies for people to exaggerate how good they think they are
One study showing self-serving bias asked American college professors to evaluate how
food they were at being a prof and 94% thought they were better than average
Self-serving bias has not only been found in academics, but also in elementary
school/high school/college students as well as working adults
oResearch has revealed that one important reason people have such biased views of themselves is
that they are motivated to view themselves positively
Determining whether you are above or below average on traits is hard since there is no concrete
information in these domains in which we can compare people to (compared to traits such as height, age
etc. your relative standing on these traits would be much more obvious)
Most striking evidence of people’s motivations to view themselves positively comes from studies that
investigate what people sometimes do to continue to see themselves in a positive light when looking at
unfavorable information
oEx, when you get a bad grade, you use downward social comparison which is comparing your
performance with the performance of someone who is doing worse than you – this makes your
performance seem better
oUpward social comparison - comparing your performance to someone who is doing better than
you – makes your performance look much worse
oCompensatory self-enhancement – acknowledge the thing you are bad at, but at the same time
think about something that you are good in (ex. acknowledge the bad grade but think about how
good you are at dancing)
By doing this, you focus on and sometimes exaggerate how good you are at something to
compensate for the negativity of the other thing
oDiscounting – reducing the perceived importance of the domain in which you performed poorly
(ex. like who tf gives a shit about chem, i ain’t tryna become a chemist so fuk dat shiz bruv)
oInternal/External Attribution – attributing the cause of that bad thing to something external
(like family problems) rather than internal (such as your ability)
oBasking in the reflected glory – emphasize your connection to successfully performing group
to which you are a part of
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Studies have found that in university/college football teams, you are more likely to say
“we” than “they” if the team had recently won a game and the individual had done poorly
themselves on a test
oSo basically, there’s many ways in which people try to enhance their self esteem which explains
why so many people have high self esteems and positive views of themselves
CULTURAL VARIATION IN SELF ENHANCING MOTIVATIONS
Wanted to know if people from interdependent cultures also showed the same strength in motivation for
positive self-views – this was hard to assume since most of the research had been done on WEIRD
people in various cultures with independent self-construal’s and self-esteem.
One study investigated that ^ question by comparing the positivity of self-views of Mexican-American
and European-American preschool and elementary school children
oShown photographs of eight other children and a photograph of themselves – asked to choose the
photos of the children who were similar to them in a number of positive characteristics (ex. who
is smart, who is nice etc)
oOverall, children from both cultural groups tended to see themselves quite positively and
included their own pictures
oEuropean Americans chose their picture for 92% of positive characteristics whereas Mexican
Americans did so for 82%
oEven at a young age, there is cultural variation in positive self-views
oAnother study with uni students from Euro-American and Native American with open ended
questionnaire – self views of Native Americans were less and they listed fewer than half as many
positive traits as the Euro-Americans did – this is because native Americans have less
independent self-concepts which is consistent with the idea that independence and self
enhancement are related
There are exceptions to this as some collectivistic cultures (ex. Maori in New Zealand, Afro-Americans
in the US, Israeli Druze etc) have shown levels of self enhancement comparable to those found in more
individualistic cultures
93% of European Canadians have self-esteem whereas only 55% of Japanese do – also, tendencies to
show self-serving bias are far less common among East-Asians than the western ones
Differences in positive self-view are sustained by the ways people attend to and interpret the events
Study – Japanese and American students asked to list their failures and successes – American students
listed more successful (62% vs 38%) whereas Japanese listed less successful ones (48% vs 52%) –
suggests that Americans find successes more memorable probs because they think about them more
where as Japanese tend to find failures more memorable
Research on self-enhancing tendencies among people of east Asian descent shows a striking lack of
enhancement motivation
oEx. after a failure, Asian Canadians are 3x more likely to seek upward social comparison than
downward ones whereas European-American ones were likely to seek as many upward and
downward ones
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oNorth Americans compensate for their failure by inflating their self-assessment in other unrelated
domains – Japanese do the opposite, after failing on a task, they see it as even more important
oResearch has shown that NA tend to attribute their failure to external factors but Japanese
attribute their success to external factors
oWhere as NA are more likely to bask in the glory of their sports team, Japanese are more likely
to be more critical of their own team than the opposing team
One possible explanation for NA seeming so much more motivated might be due to bias in our research
methods which prevents us from seeing the motivations that East Asians really have
oEx. they might be just as motivated but instead of self-enhancing, they might be motivated in
group-enhancing which might not be captured in the methods being used
oThis alternative explanation is challenged though as studies who have also looked at group
enhancing have found westerns to be more motivated than east Asians too
East Asians self-critical views seem to generalize from the individual self to the group
Endowment Effect – tendency for people to value objects more once they own them and have given
them their own positive qualities due to a connection between them and the object – an ex would be ppl
asking for so much more money for junk when tryna sell it
oEndowment effect has been found to be stronger in western people than in EA
oEndowment effect seems to be absent among the Hazda which a tribe of hunter gatherers in
Northern Tanzania, unless they have had much exposure to modern society and markets
Another possible explanation is EA’s might value a different set of traits than those that have been
explored – this finding is supported by one method, but several other methods have shown the opposite
effect
Another explanation is that these studies are not measuring the true feelings but are instead tapping into
differences in cultural norms for describing oneself – so EA’s might just be acting modest and westerns
are feigning bravado
oTests that measure unconscious associations between the self and other (+) or (-) words has
shown that EA’s appear to feel just as good about themselves as NA’s do
oSuggests that EA’s like themselves as much as NA’s do but when it comes to competence, they
are much more critical of themselves than as the NA’s
ORIGINS OF CULTURAL DIFFERENCES IN SELF ENHACEMENT
Cultural differences in self-views emerge in childhood
Study looked at US and Taiwan parents and how their attitudes towards how they raised their kids –
found that parents used past behavior to socialize their kids – EA’s focused on past success of their kids
whereas Taiwan parents used misbehavior of the child
oSo Americans basically focused their kids attention on their strengths where as Taiwanese
focused on areas that needed improvement
oWhen parents were asked about their view on self-esteem, american parents thought it was a
positive quality that enhanced a child’s development
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
One study showing self-serving bias asked american college professors to evaluate how food they were at being a prof and 94% thought they were better than average. Studies have found that in university/college football teams, you are more likely to say. There are exceptions to this as some collectivistic cultures (ex. Maori in new zealand, afro-americans in the us, israeli druze etc) have shown levels of self enhancement comparable to those found in more individualistic cultures. 93% of european canadians have self-esteem whereas only 55% of japanese do also, tendencies to show self-serving bias are far less common among east-asians than the western ones. Differences in positive self-view are sustained by the ways people attend to and interpret the events. East asians self-critical views seem to generalize from the individual self to the group. Northern tanzania, unless they have had much exposure to modern society and markets.
