Intuitions about situational correction in self and others.

People's attributional phenomenology is likely to be characterized by effortful situational correction. Drawing on this phenomenology and on people's desire to view themselves more favorably than others, the authors hypothesized that people expect others to engage in less situational correction than themselves and to make more extreme dispositional attributions for constrained actors' behavior. In 2 studies, people expected their peers to make more extreme dispositional inferences than they did themselves for a situationally constrained actor's behavior. People's expectation that they engage in more situational correction than their peers was diminished among Japanese participants, who have less desire to view themselves as superior to their peers (Study 3), and among participants who were led to view dispositional attributions more favorably than situational attributions (Study 4). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Evaluating self and others in electronic and face-to-face groups.

After completing a decision task electronically or face to face, 105 students rated their own and other group members' contribution to the task completion and their degree of liking for group members. Actual contributions were the number of task relevant remarks each person contributed. Results indicated that self-ratings of contribution were more inflated and less accurate in electronic communication than in face-to-face communication. Liking accounted for significant variance in ratings of others' contributions in face-to-face groups, whereas actual contribution accounted for significant variance in ratings of others in electronic groups. Results suggest that rating biases stemming from liking are evident in ratings of others in face-to-face groups but not in electronic. Implications for online performance evaluations are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Development of children's inferences of the emotions of others.

According to Weiner's attribution-emotion model, the development of children's inferences of emotion in others may be affected by an increasing ability to consider causal attributions and situational outcomes together, rather than outcomes alone, when making emotional judgments. This formulation was tested in the present study of developmental changes in emotional inferences and children's justifications for them. Second graders, fifth graders, and college students heard 12 stories that varied systematically by situational domain (achievement of moral), outcome (positive or negative), and causal attribution (personal effort, another's intervention, or luck) and were asked to infer the story character's subsequent emotion and explain the reasons for it. Analyses of their responses revealed significant differences by age, with second graders offering more outcome-dependent inferences (e.g., happy, sad) and justifications focusing on the story outcome alone and fifth graders and adults providing more causal attribution-dependent inferences (e.g., pride, anger) with justifications entailing causal considerations in the story narrative. However, within each age group there were few consistent associations between the kind of emotional inference and the type of justification offered for it, and adults failed to consistently generate the kinds of attribution-dependent inferences predicted by the model. The contributions and limitations of the attribution-emotion model are assessed in light of these findings. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-evaluation and assessments of performance by self and others.

Explored the relationship between self-esteem, the perception of competence, and actual competence when performance is attributed to oneself or to someone else. 44 male and 43 female undergraduates with high and low self-esteem performed a concept-formation task and evaluated their performance; 1 wk later they either rerated their own performance after watching a videotape of their previous session or rated the videotaped performance of "another S," actually a model who mimicked their previous performance. High-self-esteem Ss perceived themselves as doing better on the task than low-self-esteem Ss, although their performance was actually comparable. The 2 groups' evaluations differed only when they thought they were assessing themselves and not when they felt they were evaluating someone else. Potential mechanisms accounting for the differences in self-evaluations are explored. (34 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relational aspects of temporary changes in construing self and others.

Examined the effects of role-playing contrasting positive and negative moods on the way in which people construe themselves and others. 38 17–33 yr old undergraduates completed a baseline repertory grid in which they categorized themselves and acquaintances on bipolar constructs (e.g., excitable–calm). As in previous studies, Ss assigned others to the "unlike-self" poles of constructs approximately 37% of the time, and to the positive poles about 63% of the time. They twice repeated this grid while role-playing positive and negative moods. In the negative-mood grid, they characterized both themselves and others more negatively, and construed others as less similar to themselves. In the positive-mood grid, they evaluated themselves and others more positively, and described others as more similar to themselves. (French abstract) (30 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Simultaneous assimilation and contrast effects in judgments of self and others.

Judgments of self and referent others tend to be positively related, as evident in the false consensus effect, but others may also be contrasted from the self, as noted in the false uniqueness literature. In 3 studies that examined the domains of attitudes and traits, evidence of both assimilative and contrastive associations between self- and other-judgments were noted, depending on the form of judgment (objective vs. subjective) and the relevant judgment scale anchor (self vs. others). When self-judgments were made first, objective appraisals of reference groups were contrasted from subjective self-appraisals (after controlling for individual differences in participants' behavioral reports). When judgments of others were made first, objective self-ratings were contrasted from subjective other-judgments. Implications for the false consensus literature and the shifting standards model (M. Biernat, M. Manis, & T. E. Nelson, 1991) are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The integration of self and significant others

THIS PAPER is a study of self-conception viewed as an interpersonal construct. A relatively simple but flexible and multilevel design used in the study provides an opportunity to observe the relationship between the usually assumed generalized and global sense of self-conception and the self as perceived when in the presence of significant others. Hypotheses derived from theories of the self were formulated to test the postulated importance of significant others, and particularly the mother figure, in the development, stabilization, and integration of self-conception and, specifically, self-evaluation.     

Acceptance by others and its relation to acceptance of self and others: a revaluation.

"Analysis of the data indicated that individuals with high self-acceptance scores tend also to accept others, to feel accepted by others, but actually to be neither more nor less accepted by others than those with low self-acceptance scores. Individuals with high acceptance-of-others scores tend in turn to feel accepted by others, and tend toward being accepted by them." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Introduction to symposium on constructing self with others.

The notion that the self is interpersonally embedded can be found throughout psychology's history. This article presents convergent work from different areas of contemporary psychology that supports and elaborates this notion. M. Baldwin's (1997) experimental work in social cognition demonstrates that self-evaluation varies with the relational schema that is activated. C. R. Snyder and R. L. Higgins (1997) present a social–cognitive personality theory of how people maintain their self theories to satisfy internal and external audiences. S. J. Blatt, J. S. Auerbach, and K. N. Levy's (1997) object-relations theory of the role of mental representations of self and others in psychopathology is supported by research that changes in these representations are associated with improvement in psychotherapy. J. Martin and J. Sugarman's (1997) social–cognitive theory of counseling and psychotherapy as conversational reconstructions of self theories also has research support and raises the issue of whether the self is agentic if socially constructed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Aggression against self and aggression against others in violent psychiatric patients.

The relationship between indices of aggression against self and aggression against others are examined retrospectively in a sample of 103 male forensic inpatients during a 3-year period. Ss with both self-destructiveness during hospitalization and suicidal behavior before hospitalization engaged in the highest frequency of aggression against others. The implications of these findings for the assessment, prediction, and treatment of violence and self-destructiveness are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Overconfident prediction of future actions and outcomes by self and others.

In a follow-up study to D. Dunning et al (see record 1990-22524-001), which had investigated the phenomenon of overconfidence in social prediction, two samples of first-year undergraduates were invited to make predictions about their own future responses (and, in the case of Sample 2, also those of their roommates) over the months ahead. These predictions were accompanied by confidence estimates and were evaluated in the light of actual responses reported later by the subjects in question. The primary finding was that self-predictions, like social predictions, proved to be consistently overconfident. As in Dunning et al, moreover, overconfidence could be traced to two sources. First, expressions of particularly high confidence rarely proved to be warranted; as confidence increased, the gap between accuracy and confidence widened. Second, predictions that went against relevant base rates yielded very low accuracy in the face of relatively unattenuated confidence levels. The implications of these results are discussed, and one potentially important underlying mechanism—the failure to make adequate inferential allowance for the uncertanties of situational construal—is proposed for further research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's attributions regarding the situational determinants of emotion in self and others.

22 4–5 yr olds and 22 7–8 yr olds, equally divided by sex, were interviewed regarding the contexts they considered elicited each of 5 emotional states (happy, sad, angry, afraid, and surprised) in self, other children, and adults. Responses were coded into a priori categories and were compared with rankings made by 40 22–36 yr olds of the same categories as explanations for adults' and for children's emotions. Results confirm that explanations for emotional states were nonrandom, even for preschoolers, and were distributed in significantly different and meaningful ways across the emotions investigated. Several age- and gender-related hypotheses were confirmed: Interpersonal and achievement explanations for emotions both increased with age; fantasy contexts for fear decreased with age; and girls used more interpersonal explanations for emotion than did boys. Expected increases with age in cognitive differentiation of such affect knowledge were marginally confirmed, with older children using a greater number of categories to explain emotions than did younger children. Contrary to expectations, there were no age or gender effects as a function of target person, nor was there greater differentiation of categories used to explain own vs others' affect. Social and cognitive factors relevant to children's and adults' affect construals are discussed. (27 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive correlates of emotional traits: Perceptions of self and others.

Two studies examined how individuals' perceptions of self and others are associated with different emotional traits. Study 1 (N = 386) used structural equation modeling of questionnaire data to examine the relations between emotional traits (i.e., affect intensity, affect variability, and trait pleasant and unpleasant affect) and self- and other-perceptions (i.e., self-instability, self-esteem, other-instability, and perceived treatment by others). Study 2 (N = 99) used path analyses of data collected using an event sampling method in which online measures of emotional experiences (i.e., intensity, frequency, and variability of pleasant and unpleasant affect) as well as perceptions of self and others (i.e., self-instability, self-esteem, other-instability, perceived treatment by others) were collected. The strongest and most consistent finding was that affect variability was associated with both self- and other-instability. The results linking affect intensity with self- and other-instability were limited to negative intensity. There was also evidence of pleasant affect being associated with both self-esteem and perceived treatment by others, and unpleasant affect being associated with self-esteem and other-instability. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Illusion of control for self and others in depressed and nondepressed college students.

108 depressed or nondepressed undergraduates, as assessed by the Beck Depression Inventory and Multiple Affect Adjective Check List, judged either how much control they themselves had or how much control a male or female confederate (C) had over a noncontingent, but positive, outcome. Replicating past findings (i.e., L. B. Alloy et al, 1981) on depression and judgments of control, depressed Ss judged relatively accurately that they exerted little control over the experimental outcome, whereas nondepressed Ss overestimated their personal control. Ss' judgments of the C's control were a function of the S's mood state and sex as well as of the C's sex. With 1 exception (depressed males in the male other condition), depressed Ss tended to overestimate the C's (male or female) control over the noncontingent outcome. Nondepressed females also judged that the C (male or female) exerted a high degree of control, thus succumbing to the illusion of control both for themselves and others. Nondepressed males tended to judge more accurately that the C (particularly the female C) exerted little control and thus succumbed to the illusion of control for themselves but not for others. Findings imply that an adequate understanding of depressive and nondepressive cognition requires an interpersonal as well as an intrapsychic perspective. (48 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Developmental trends in motor response recognition.

Examined the ability of 80 Ss from each of Grades 3, 5, and 9 to recognize movement information as a function of precision of knowledge of results (KR). Findings show initially lower recognition by 3rd graders at 4 KR precision levels, but after practice there were no developmental differences across the age groups in response recognition for the 2 intermediate levels of KR precision. Implications of these response recognition findings for developmental differences in response planning, production, and recall are discussed. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-disclosure: A comparative study of reports by self and others.

Developed an individualized, free-response self-disclosure measurement questionnaire to study differences in self-disclosure patterns of 31 female college students as a function of target roles. Findings from an analysis of variance of the self-disclosures reported by Ss to male and female friends and male to female relatives indicated significantly more reported self-disclosure to females than males and to friends than relatives. Similar analyses of Ss' disclosures as reported by "significant other" informants failed to reveal any clear pattern of self-disclosure by the Ss. This discrepancy between Ss' reported self-disclosure behavior and the same behavior as reported by informants was interpreted as suggesting that informant reports are the most accurate self-disclosure indices, a finding that raises some important questions about counseling research based upon self-reports alone. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effect of stress on expressed attitudes toward self and others.

"There were two main phases of this study: (a) prestress administration of tests of acceptance of self and others, and (b) the stress phase during which tests of acceptance of self and others were readministered… . It was predicted that following introduction of stress, Ss would: (a) express liking for more pictures of people, (b) rate others more favorably, and (c) make significant changes in their self-ratings… . All three hypotheses were supported by the data… ." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

More human than you: Attributing humanness to self and others.

People typically evaluate their in-groups more favorably than out-groups and themselves more favorably than others. Research on infrahumanization also suggests a preferential attribution of the "human essence" to in-groups, independent of in-group favoritism. The authors propose a corresponding phenomenon in interpersonal comparisons: People attribute greater humanness to themselves than to others, independent of self-enhancement. Study 1 and a pilot study demonstrated 2 distinct understandings of humanness--traits representing human nature and those that are uniquely human--and showed that only the former traits are understood as inhering essences. In Study 2, participants rated themselves higher than their peers on human nature traits but not on uniquely human traits, independent of self-enhancement. Study 3 replicated this "self-humanization" effect and indicated that it is partially mediated by attribution of greater depth to self versus others. Study 4 replicated the effect experimentally. Thus, people perceive themselves to be more essentially human than others. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)