Is Self-Enhancement a Positive Thing - Assignment Example

Self Enhancement Self enhancement means having a positive self-concept. Self enhancement makes us feel good about ourselves as we perceive ourselves in a positive light. It helps maintain or build up high self-esteem or self-worth. People who have low self-esteem tend to overplay their weaknesses and believe that others are better than them. This hampers their success and development and lead to failures in life. (Kassin, Fein, & Markus, 2008) People who want to see themselves as lovable, competent and humane, have a positive self-concept and they want to believe what they perceive about themselves. Each person is biased towards himself/herself in order to maintain a positive self-esteem. There are three biases that lead to self-enhancement. In Fundamental Attribution Error or the Correspondence bias (Kassin, Fein, & Markus, 2008), a person overestimates the dispositional factors contributing to an event. Usually fundamental attribution error occurs when we attribute success to ourselves but when it comes to assessing the accomplishments of others, we believe that external factors helped them succeed. This bolsters self enhancement by making the person feel like he is more capable and talented than the others. Self-concept is usually built by comparing yourself to others. So, if you think that you’re better than others then you will have a high self-esteem. In self-serving bias, a positive outcome is attributed to the personal abilities of oneself, while a negative outcome is attributed to situational factors (Kassin, Fein, & Markus, 2008). Hence, if I achieve something that is due to my own efforts and personal traits, but if I fail that is because of the situation. The self-serving bias helps protect our ego and aid in achieving our goals. A person believes that he is in power and therefore he can succeed if he wishes to, by putting his capabilities to use (internal locus of control). Self esteem and self concept is built through belonging. In In-Group bias, we have a positive view of the group we belong in and we associate those strengths to ourselves (Kassin, Fein, & Markus, 2008). A group can be any social unit, your family, your class, your club etc. If common perception is that people living in a particular locality are more kind and hospitable, then a person living in that area would associate those traits with himself. Thus, In-group bias inflates self-esteem by helping people to internalize positive traits associated to their social groups. Self Fulfilling Prophecy The concept of self fulfilling prophecy explains how preconceived expectations and beliefs, negative or positive, affect the outcome by influencing the way a person behaves towards the object (Kassin, Fein, & Markus, 2008). This means that what one believes matters as we tend to behave, consciously and subconsciously, in ways that leads to the event we predicted. We majorly attribute the predicted outcome to our intuition while actually it is our behavior that causes it. Self-fulfilling prophecies are real and are very much a part of our daily lives. So, if businessman beliefs that his new venture will be prove to be disastrous and he is taking an enormous risk; it is more than likely that his fears will come true due to his behavior. Self-fulfilling prophecies can be beneficial as long as one thinks about positive outcomes, given that they are in realms of reality. It can lead to achievement and self-enhancement by motivating a person to achieve what he beliefs and thereby contribute in building a positive self-concept (Kassin, Fein, & Markus, 2008). On the other hand, if one has a negative self-fulfilling prophecy, it is likely that it will hinder success and affect one’s own performance, if directed towards oneself, or that of the others, if directed towards them. In such cases one should look for ways to prevent self-fulfilling prophecies. Self-fulfilling prophecies can be prevented by following simple steps. By disregarding your biases and prejudice we can look at a larger picture and take into account what other forces act on a situation. Listening to others opinions helps to get to know what others believe and expect in similar situations. One should always have realistic goals and expectations and should always think positive. Thinking endlessly about what you cannot do will achieve nothing and make your worst fears come true. Lastly, when you see that your negative beliefs on a subject is hampering its progress or turning out to be true, change the way u act and think. A friend expected that since he got bad marks in a class quiz once, he would do badly in that course throughout. As the semester passed, his prophecy became true and he ended up with a low grade. Instead of predicting his grade based on one event, he could have tried harder and assessed the results based on his performance on several quizzes. He should have taken a positive approach towards the subject and the low grade on the quiz should have been taken as an indicator to work harder. He could have improved by setting realistic goals, each time determining the marks he should get in the next quiz and increasing the threshold when the goal was achieved. However, due to his pre-accepted failure in the subject, his attitude became negligent and he thought that all his efforts will prove to be futile. This learned helplessness became an obstacle in his progress and led to the fulfillment of his prophecy. Stereotypes Stereotypes are generalizations, positive or negative, about a group of people which help to attribute defined characteristics to that group. Stereotypes help people to categorize information and retrieve it; but in doing so we often forget the uniqueness of every individual (Kassin, Fein, & Markus, 2008). When stereotype when we don’t have full information and the gaps are filled by the stereotypes we assign to a group. Associating favorable characteristics to a group helps build up self esteem of every individual belonging to that group, while the opposite happens when we assign negative stereotypes to another group. In the presence of stereotypes we make unfair judgments and the stereotypes are often negative when an out-group is concerned. For example, popular belief is that blondes are dumb and Asians are smart. However not ALL blondes are dumb and not ALL Asians are smart. Thus we discriminate when we use stereotypes and the person who has been imposed with stereotypes often feels cornered and disadvantaged. An Indian friend of mine was extremely good at football during high school. When he tried out for university trials, the coach at the university, a white male, seemed doubtful about his performance. Although he made it to the team but he constantly got negative vibes from the coach. The coach enthusiastically bucked up the other players and took interest in their training, but when it came to Suresh, he often seemed disinterested and always scolded Suresh on small mistakes rather than telling him how to improve himself. This eventually led to Suresh’s bad performance in final matches since his mentor did not provide the mental support and trust needed to win a team game. Stereotypes do not always have a negative effect. Positive stereotypes can boost up performance and can encourage people to do more than they think they can. When people achieve goals their self-esteem boosts up and they perform better (Kassin, Fein, & Markus, 2008). For example, usually at secondary level, teachers are more responsive to students whose elder siblings were outstanding students and had been taught by them. They believe that that particular student is bright and will do better than the rest. Because of this perception, the teacher pays more attention to that student unconsciously and this eventually leads to better performance. Cognitive Dissonance Theory Cognitive dissonance theory explains how conflicting views, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors can lead to uncomfortable tension within oneself. This anxiety is greatest when the subject is extremely important to us and our thoughts are strongly in conflict while we do not have any explanation for the dissonance (Kassin, Fein, & Markus, 2008). The Self-perception theory is an alternative view to the cognitive dissonance theory. Conventional view is that behavior follows attitude (Kassin, Fein, & Markus, 2008). However, the self-perception theory explains that people monitor their behaviors and then decide what attitudes and feelings they have towards an object. This happens when there are confusing or weak internal cues. For example, if a person watches a particular T.V channel almost every day, he’d conclude that he likes that channel. Another alternative to cognitive dissonance theory is the self-affirmation theory which says that people, in order to preserve their self-esteem, start thinking about things they are better at, when their weakness in one area is highlighted. Hence if a person’s self-concept is threatened in a particular area, he will compensate by focusing at other areas. For example, if a classmate teases you on your bad grade in English, you will think about how good you are at Mathematics and protect your self-esteem. Lastly, the impression management theory suggests that every individual, to some extent, molds his/her behavior in such a way that is not only acceptable but is favorable. This happens because we all live in a social setting where certain behaviors and norms have to be followed and are deemed preferable. In order to portray ourselves in a positive light we bend the truth deliberately in our favor. For example, an employee does impression management on his employer by giving him cues which suggest that he is competent, diligent and motivated towards his work by engaging in work when the boss is around and showing enthusiasm in the work process. Bibliography Kassin, S., Fein, S., & Markus, H. (2008). Social Psychology. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. Read More