IBP Social and Organizational Psychology Summary with Keywords

Organizational Psychology


Lecture 1- The Self and Groups
Ch 4+11
The Self
How well do you know yourself?
 Intentions vs behaviour self-other discrepancy, who is more likely to accurately estimate how
much someone engages in a behaviour, yourself or someone else
- Others are just as good as estimating your behavior as you are because of our intentions
bias the estimations of our real behaviors
How to know yourself?
 Self-promotion presenting our most favorable aspects
 Self-verification presenting ourselves in ways that induce others to agree with our own self-
views
 Ingratiation creates favorable self-presentation by conveying respect for others
 Self-depreciate to communicate admiration for another through comparison
 Introspection conscious access
 Affective forecasting biases over-projection of current feelings and failure to consider context
 Social comparison judging ourselves in comparison to others- used when difficult to estimate
how well we are performing
- With whom we compare ourselves depends on our goals
- Downward comparison compare with someone who isn’t as good, to feel better about
ourselves
- Upward comparison compare with someone who is better than ourselves for the
motivation to grow
- Above average effect we see ourselves more positively and less negatively than we see
others
 Personal versus social identity continuum:
- personal identity level we can think of ourselves in terms of attributes that differentiate
ourselves from other individuals, and therefore will be based on intragroup comparison.
- social identity level perceptions of ourselves are based on attributes that are shared with
other group members- intergroup comparison
 Possible selves other future possible selves that can motivate us to attempt self-change
 Autobiographical memory allows us to feel good about our current self by comparing it to
past selves
 Ego depletion when self control is used up and therefore makes it more difficult to self-
regulate
How do you define yourself?
 APhysical self-descriptions physical qualities that do not imply social interaction (age, sex,
weight, etc.)
 BSocial self-descriptions relationships, group memberships, social roles, attitudes which are
socially defined and validated (nationality, job, etc.)
 CPsychological self-descriptions psychological traits and states and attitudes which do not
refer to particular social reference. (I happy, I am shy)

,Organizational Psychology


 D Holistic self-descriptions characteristics so comprehensive pr vague that they do not
distinguish one person from another (I am me, I am a human being)
 Cultural differences in how ppl define themselves
- Interdependent self-view(B) define oneself in terms of one’s relationships to other people
and recognize that the self is often determined by others- Nonwestern self-view, focus on
connectedness with others, interdependence
- Independent self-view (A and C) define oneself in terms of own internal thoughts, feelings,
and actions- western self-view, separate from others, unique, independent
 Age differences
- Young (C) describe themselves with personality traits3
- Older (B) use more social roles
 Gender differences
- Relational interdependence (B) focus more on close relationships (Women)
- Collective interdependence (B) focus more on memberships in large groups (men)
 Social Identity theory our identity is for a large part determined by the context
- Social identity exists with all the groups that you are part of and that are important to you
- Salient identity identity present in that moment within that context
- Identity changes within the context meaning one true self doesn’t exist
 Comparison social identity not only depends on context but who we compare ourselves with
 Centrality some aspects of ourselves are more central to our definition of our identity (e.g.
sexual orientation, religion, etc.)
Feeling good about yourself:
 Being part of a group can make us feel good about ourselves
 If our social identity is disapproved by others we can either try to change or we can turn the
disproved aspects into something +ve for ourselves (improve self-esteem)
 Self-esteem do something good compared to others either on your own or in a group
- In a group when others achieve something it can improve your own self-esteem even if not
personally responsible for the achievement
- Basking in reflected glory feeling good about yourself as part of a winning team, more
likely to be proud of your identity after your group wins, more likely to represent your group
- Cutting off reflected failure less likely to represent your group after failure/losing,
tendency to connect ourselves to a successful group and distance from a group we are not
proud of
Stereotype threat:
 Not always able to distance ourselves from certain groups
 Some groups have stereotypes- these stereotypes can become self-fulfilling prophecies
(stereotype threats)
 Stereotype threatproduces fear negative impact on
performance
 Vicious cycle created by stereotype threat

- A positive role model can help break the vicious cycle

, Organizational Psychology


 The Obama effect black people stereotyped by lower intelligence, tested before and after
Obama elected, before black scored significantly lower than white however after no significance
was found
Groups
Joining groups:
 Group 2 or more people that strive for a mutual goal or strive to meet a mutual need together
- Collections of people who perceive themselves as forming a cohesive unit to some degree.
 Evolutionary explanation for joining groups ppl who joined groups were evolutionarily more
successful
 Common-bond groups members are bonded with each other
 Common identity groups members linked via category as a whole
 Entitativity the extent to which the group is perceived to form a coherent entity
 Reasons to work in a group:
- Task goals sharing knowledge and information
- Social goals fulfills our needs to belong
 Joining groups some groups allow anyone to join other require certain characteristics or
behaviors or rituals to be performed to join
- Initiation rites
- Cognitive dissonance experienced when behavior is not inline with attitude
Key components of groups:
 Statuseither between or within groups
 Hierarchy status within a group can be determined by physical characteristics, behaviour, and
seniority
 Roles formal and informal roles within a group can determine status
 Norms the more you identify with a group the more you conform with group norms
- Group norms implicit rules about what is appropriate- can affect our emotional expressions
and experiences through adherence to feeling rules
- Norms of individualism and collectivism can affect our willingness to tolerate dissent within
groups
 Cohesiveness the forces that cause members to remain in that group
- High cohesiveness can increase likelihood of staying in the group, taking part in group
activities and recruiting new members
 Schism  when a group splinters into distinct factions based on ideology
- Can cause emotional distress in those who feel compelled to leave
 Intergroup sensitivity effect intergroup critics are more tolerated than outgroup critics as they
are seen as having the ingroup’s interests at heart
 Social facilitation the presence of others is arousing and can either increase or decrease
performance
 Distraction conflict theory the presence of others induces conflicting tendencies to focus on
the task being performed and, on an audience,
 Evaluation apprehension view an audience disrupts our performance because we are
concerned about their evaluation of us
Cooperation and Conflict: