PSY 3140, Social Psychology 1 Course Learning Outcomes for Unit II Upon completion of this unit, students should be able to: 2. Evaluate the underlying principles in the field of social psychology. 2.1 Identify the differences between intuition and logic thinking systems. 2.2 Describe the roles and functions of biases and heuristics in the intuition thinking system. 6. Explain how social environments influence the understanding of individuals. 6.1 Apply theories and principles regarding self-knowledge to indicate how our self-concept is socially determined. Course/Unit Learning Outcomes Learning Activity 2.1 Unit Lesson Chapter 4 Unit II Assessment 2.2 Unit Lesson Chapter 4 Unit II Assessment 6.1 Unit Lesson Chapter 3 Unit II Assessment Reading Assignment Chapter 3: The Social Self Chapter 4: Social Cognition UNIT II STUDY GUIDE Perceiving Ourselves and the World PSY 3140, Social Psychology 2 UNIT x STUDY GUIDE Title Unit Lesson The Social Self Who are you? How did you determine who you are? Do humans differ in this respect from other animals? The concept of the self has been something that psychologists and laypeople alike have attempted to explain. Early investigation into these questions led Gordon Gallup to place animals in front of a mirror with red dye on part of their faces. Some animals, like great apes and dolphins, noticed that their image had changed when placed in front of a mirror, indicating that they have self-recognition, or an understanding that one is a separate entity from others and objects in the world (Heinzen & Goodfriend, 2019). When does self- recognition occur in human infants? Self-recognition develops in human infants at around the age of 2, and it continues to develop across the lifespan. At first, this concept is concrete and focused on observable characteristics (e.g., I have brown hair) then becomes more abstract (e.g., I consider myself religious) and focused on psychological characteristics (e.g., I am nice) in childhood and adolescence. How would you describe yourself right now? Now think about how you would have described yourself when you were four. It might be hard to remember, but at age 4, many of you probably described yourselves in terms of observational characteristics. How do you come to even know what descriptors fit you? This relates to the term self-concept, which is the personal summary of who we believe we are, and it can be acquired through many sources as noted by Heinzen and Goodfriend (2019). For example, you can rely on other people to provide self-knowledge. You can come to know yourself by comparing yourself to others on abilities, traits, and attitudes. This is known as social comparison theory. You make social comparisons when you have little information available, and you typically compare yourself to others who are similar to you. However, you do not always do this. Some ...

1. PSY 3140, Social Psychology 1
Course Learning Outcomes for Unit II
Upon completion of this unit, students should be able to:
2. Evaluate the underlying principles in the field of social
psychology.
2.1 Identify the differences between intuition and logic thinking
systems.
2.2 Describe the roles and functions of biases and heuristics in
the intuition thinking system.
6. Explain how social environments influence the understanding
of individuals.
6.1 Apply theories and principles regarding self-knowledge to
indicate how our self-concept is
socially determined.
Course/Unit
Learning Outcomes
Learning Activity
2.1

2. Unit Lesson
Chapter 4
Unit II Assessment
2.2
Unit Lesson
Chapter 4
Unit II Assessment
6.1
Unit Lesson
Chapter 3
Unit II Assessment
Reading Assignment
Chapter 3: The Social Self
Chapter 4: Social Cognition
UNIT II STUDY GUIDE
Perceiving Ourselves
and the World
PSY 3140, Social Psychology 2
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE

3. Title
Unit Lesson
The Social Self
Who are you? How did you determine who you are? Do humans
differ in this respect from other animals? The
concept of the self has been something that psychologists and
laypeople alike have attempted to explain.
Early investigation into these questions led Gordon Gallup to
place animals in front of a mirror with red dye on
part of their faces. Some animals, like great apes and dolphins,
noticed that their image had changed when
placed in front of a mirror, indicating that they have self-
recognition, or an understanding that one is a
separate entity from others and objects in the world (Heinzen &
Goodfriend, 2019). When does self-
recognition occur in human
infants? Self-recognition develops
in human infants at around the
age of 2, and it continues to
develop across the lifespan. At
first, this concept is concrete and
focused on observable
characteristics (e.g., I have brown
hair) then becomes more abstract
(e.g., I consider myself religious)
and focused on psychological
characteristics (e.g., I am nice) in
childhood and adolescence. How
would you describe yourself right
now? Now think about how you

4. would have described yourself
when you were four. It might be
hard to remember, but at age 4,
many of you probably described
yourselves in terms of
observational characteristics.
How do you come to even know what descriptors fit you? This
relates to the term self-concept, which is the
personal summary of who we believe we are, and it can be
acquired through many sources as noted by
Heinzen and Goodfriend (2019). For example, you can rely on
other people to provide self-knowledge. You
can come to know yourself by comparing yourself to others on
abilities, traits, and attitudes. This is known as
social comparison theory. You make social comparisons when
you have little information available, and you
typically compare yourself to others who are similar to you.
However, you do not always do this. Sometimes
you compare your traits and abilities to people who are better
than yourself, which is known as upward social
comparison. Other times, to boost your ego, you might compare
yourself to people with worse traits and
abilities than yourself, known as downward social comparison.
Can you think of situations in your life in which
you engaged in upward and/or downward social comparisons? If
so, what was the situation or situations? Do
you think that different situations might help to determine
whether you engage in either upward or downward
social comparisons? Do you think that you really engage in
downward social comparison to boost your ego?
Culture can also influence one’s self-knowledge. In many
Western cultures, including the United States,
people hold an independent self-construal, in which they come

5. to view themselves with more internal,
personal qualities; in contrast, people from many non-Western
cultures have an interdependent self-construal,
in which they come to view themselves with more social or
relational qualities (Heinzen & Goodfriend, 2019).
You might be asking yourself, “I am from the United States, but
I think I have more of an interdependent view
of the self.” It is important to understand that there are
individual differences within cultures. In addition, as
many cultures come into contact with each other, it is likely that
differences across cultures might decrease
over time. Think about it: How might the adoption of various
American attitudes influence the values in other
cultures? Do you think this information would be beneficial,
detrimental, or neutral?
Even with a developed self-concept, the social environment can
influence one’s self-perceptions. Humans
focus on themselves a lot, but social entities and situations can
provide the opportunity to notice something
about themselves that they had not noticed before. Self-
perception theory suggests that observing one’s own
behaviors in the social world aids in noticing behavioral trends
and incorporating that into one’s self-concept
Self-reflection and self-understanding begin in infanthood
(Aviahuismanphotography, 2014)
PSY 3140, Social Psychology 3
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE

6. Title
(Heinzen & Goodfriend, 2019). Imagine that your friend asks
you what your favorite type of movie is, but you
do not have an answer immediately. After careful reflection of
what movies you always stop to watch on
television, no matter what, you may determine that your favorite
genre is historical drama.
Focusing on oneself can also lead to comparison of your
behaviors to your own standards and values. This is
known as self-discrepancy theory (Heinzen & Goodfriend,
2019). Sometimes, discrepancies arise between
who you think you are right now, who you want to become, and
who you feel expected to be. To reduce
discrepancies, you may change your behaviors to achieve your
self-goals and expectations, but if you cannot
change your behaviors, you may feel uneasy. In particular, if
who you think you are right now does not match
who you want to be, you may feel disappointment or
embarrassment, while if who you think you are right now
does not match who you feel expected to be, you may feel guilt
or anxiety.
Have you ever tried to get someone to view
you the way you view yourself? Have you
tried to get them to view you in a specific
manner in order to gain some kind of social
influence? Social psychologists use the term
impression management to describe these
types of behaviors (Heinzen & Goodfriend,
2019). Some people engage in less or more
impression management when compared
others. Think about the people in your life.

7. Can you identify those people who are quite
concerned with impression management?
What are some ways that these people try
to alter others’ perceptions? There are many
types of impression management strategies,
including ingratiation (i.e., using flattery or
praise to get someone to like you) and self-
promotion (i.e., taking undue credit for or
enhancing one’s accomplishments). Now
that you are aware of these strategies, have
you or anyone you know utilized these
strategies in an effort to control others’
perceptions? Keep in mind that humans
tend to be biased in a positive manner and interpret information
in a way to promote that viewpoint. There are
very few people who enjoy thinking of themselves as overly
bad, mean, and ill equipped rather than overly
good, nice, and competent.
Finally, people vary in how they feel about or evaluate their
self-concept, which social psychologists refer to
as self-esteem (Heinzen & Goodfriend, 2019). As part of one’s
self-concept, social identity can influence
one’s self-esteem as well. Think about groups in which you
consider yourself a part. How does the social
environment in which you live view those groups? Do you think
that contributes to how you evaluate yourself?
You may find yourself becoming more distant from social
groups that are less desirable and becoming more
connected with social groups that are more desirable. While
self-esteem can be measured directly or
indirectly, holding one’s self in high regard does not always
lead to positive outcomes. In fact, boosting self-
esteem can go too far in creating individuals who feel they are
better than others and avoid helpful negative
feedback.

8. Social Cognition
Have you ever thought about why you do certain things? Are
you curious about why your neighbor takes the
trash out at exactly the same time every night? Why does your
co-worker eat lunch at the same time every
day? Such thoughts are common to all human beings. Humans
hold a desire to think about themselves and
the social world around them. This process is known as social
cognition, which includes both intuition and
logic. When you make quick judgments about behaviors, you
make such judgments with minimal cognitive
effort or based on gut feelings. This is known as intuition
(Heinzen & Goodfriend, 2019). When you carefully
consider evidence before reaching a conclusion, you make such
judgments with more cognitive effort and
purposeful reasoning. This is known as logic (Heinzen &
Goodfriend, 2019). While it may appear that
Self-promotion is one type of impression management strategy.
(Young, 2011)
PSY 3140, Social Psychology 4
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title
considering all information available is the best route to take, it

9. can lead to information overload; thus,
humans also tend to be cognitive misers who take mental
shortcuts in order to streamline their thinking
processes (you will learn more about mental shortcuts later in
the lesson). Keep in mind that overreliance on
one thinking system over the other may result in negative
consequences, but humans are quite adept at
switching back and forth to fit the amount of information (or
cognitive load) they are able to handle in a given
situation.
Does culture affect social thinking? Think back to the
environment or culture in which you were raised. How
might the culture in which you grew up influence your
decisions, attitudes, and behaviors? What might set
your thinking apart from others? The best way to describe the
influence of culture on your thoughts is that
culture determines the tools you take from your toolbox and can
influence what aspects of a situation you
focus on when making a decision. In Western cultures, you may
focus more on uniqueness or nonconformity,
while in East Asian cultures, you may focus more on conformity
or putting group needs first (Heinzen &
Goodfriend, 2019).
As a human being, one can aid memory of social information by
organizing his or her knowledge concerning
the social world based on these experiences. These organized
pieces of knowledge are mental structures
known as schemas. Your schemas help you to organize and
make sense of the world through categorization,
and they allow you to relate new experiences to old ones
(Heinzen & Goodfriend, 2019). You may also
recognize this concept because scripts and stereotypes are
considered specific types of schemas that help
guide expectations and behaviors toward social situations and

10. other people. To understand a schema, you
can think about many routine tasks that you do. For instance,
ask any 3-year-old child what he or she does at
the grocery store. Many 3-year-olds will talk about getting into
the cart, seeing their parent looking at the list,
tasting some free samples, and perhaps getting a treat in the
checkout line. The information that the 3-year-
old tells you about what happens at the grocery store is an
example of a schema. Can you think of any other
schemas that we might have?
Despite the many schemas one holds in his or her mind,
sometimes one mentally changes aspects of his or
her past according to what he or she imagines could have
occurred. This is known as counterfactual thinking
(Heinzen & Goodfriend, 2019). When you ruminate over and
over, such thinking can contribute to depression.
However, when people are able to focus their attention on either
what they can do to improve in the future or
how things could have been worse, they are better able to cope
with their emotions and address future
actions. Just be sure to set realistic expectations!
As noted above, humans are cognitive misers who use mental
strategies to take shortcuts when they make
decisions. This allows one to make decisions more easily so that
he or she does not devote too much time
and energy to every decision that must be made. Heuristics, of
which there are many, are mental shortcuts
people use to make judgments quickly and efficiently, often as a
tradeoff against slower, but more accurate
judgments (Heinzen & Goodfriend, 2019). Sometimes decisions
are made based on how easy it is to make
judgments. This mental shortcut is called the availability
heuristic. Sometimes, decisions are made based on
comparing various decisions to similar situations that have been

11. previously encountered. This mental shortcut
is known as the representativeness heuristic. Sometimes,
decisions are made based on initial information or
estimates presented within a situation. This mental shortcut is
known as the anchoring and adjustment
heuristic. Thinking about these heuristics, can you see any
potential issues with relying on them? How might
understanding these heuristics influence your trust in your own
intuition versus logical reasoning?
Humans cannot avoid using their intuition, so how can one
improve his or her thinking? Psychologists have
focused extensively on this question, and there are many
empirical answers to the question. One way
psychologists have proposed to improve thinking is to help
people become more modest in their reasoning
abilities and understand where limitations may apply (Heinzen
& Goodfriend, 2019). This will help avoid
various biases in our assessment of intuitive judgments, whether
that be through confirming what we already
think or believe, thinking we knew it all along, or more easily
recalling negative information.
References
Aviahuismanphotography. (2014). Laughing baby looking in
mirror (ID 47574311) [Photograph]. Retrieved
from www.dreamstime.com

12. PSY 3140, Social Psychology 5
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title
Heinzen, T., & Goodfriend, W. (2019). Social psychology.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Young, L. F. (2011). Businessman – Mr. Bigshot (ID 18617946)
[Photograph]. Retrieved from
www.dreamstime.com
Suggested Reading
The PowerPoint presentations below serve as a companion to
the chapters in this unit. You are encouraged
to view them for a deeper understanding of the material
presented in this unit.
Click here to view the Chapter 3 PowerPoint Presentation. Click
here to view the presentation as a PDF.
Click here to view the Chapter 4 PowerPoint Presentation. Click
here to view the presentation as a PDF.
In order to access the following resources, click the links
below:

13. This unit touched on the idea of self-promotion; it is an
important skill to be able to master. However, where is
the line drawn between self-promotion and bragging? The
article below explores this concept.
Scopelliti, I., Loewenstein, G., & Vosgerau, J. (2015). You call
it “self-exuberance”; I call it “bragging”:
Miscalibrated predictions of emotional responses to self-
promotion. Psychological Science, 26(6),
903–914. Retrieved from
http://journals.sagepub.com/stoken/default+domain/gpRyrV7D
WyhJI6MaCAqV/full
In this unit, you also learned about heuristics, or mental
shortcuts that help with decision-making. To learn
more about some of these heuristics and the biases that come
from them, take a few minutes to read the
article below.
Dale, S. (2015). Heuristics and biases: The science of decision-
making. Business Information Review, 32(2),
93–99. Retrieved from
http://journals.sagepub.com/stoken/default+domain/9mMC5VPI
TUTAVcfgZIUr/full
Learning Activities (Nongraded)
Nongraded Learning Activities are provided to aid students in
their course of study. You do not have to submit
them. If you have questions, contact your instructor for further
guidance and information.

14. Activity 1: Let’s learn more about self-esteem! On page 79 of
your textbook, follow the instructions to answer
and score your responses on the ten items of Rosenberg’s Self-
Esteem Scale. After determining your overall
score, respond to the following prompts: Do you agree or
disagree with your score? Why? How do you think
your self-esteem has affected you or a situation you have been
in (either positively or negatively)?
Activity 2: Test yourself on concepts covered in Chapters 3 and
4. Mastering this material will help you
complete the assessment in this unit. Click the links below to
view the flashcards and quizzes for each unit.
Click here for the Chapter 3 Flashcards. Click here for the
Chapter 3 Quiz.
Click here for the Chapter 4 Flashcards. Click here for the
Chapter 4 Quiz.
https://online.columbiasouthern.edu/bbcswebdav/xid-
93242581_1
https://online.columbiasouthern.edu/bbcswebdav/xid-
93242580_1
https://online.columbiasouthern.edu/bbcswebdav/xid-
93242583_1
https://online.columbiasouthern.edu/bbcswebdav/xid-
93242582_1
http://journals.sagepub.com/stoken/default+domain/gpRyrV7D
WyhJI6MaCAqV/full
http://journals.sagepub.com/stoken/default+domain/9mMC5VPI
TUTAVcfgZIUr/full
https://edge.sagepub.com/heinzen/student-resources-0/chapter-

15. 3/flashcards
https://edge.sagepub.com/heinzen/student-resources-0/chapter-
3/quizzes
https://edge.sagepub.com/heinzen/student-resources-0/chapter-
4/flashcards
https://edge.sagepub.com/heinzen/student-resources-0/chapter-
4/quizzes