Am I a suck-up??

I find it amusing that the things people do every day to influence other’s perception of them can be grouped into specific self-presentation “strategies.” I’m not putting strategies in quotations because I don’t consider them strategies, but because I’ve never really considered them as things people consciously scheme to do in order to meet their goals. Maybe its just me, but I don’t usually spend time or effort consciously weighing the pros and cons of each strategy in every situation I come across. I mentioned my relationship with my siblings as an example of intimidation in class. Perhaps I’m falling prey to the spotlight effect and no one really remembers that example, but to recap when I was younger I tried to present myself as a powerful person (i.e. intimidation) because if I was successful I could manipulate them to get what I wanted (I swear I’m not a horrible sister!!). But, returning to my original point, I didn’t have a mental conversation with myself debating about which “side” of myself (i.e. which strategy to use) to present to my siblings each time I wanted something from them, it just happened.

I have to write about another strategy that I use quite often...I feel as if I’m confessing something horrifying because that’s how embarrassed I am about it! I am a head nodder...I don’t mean to be! I didn’t even notice that I did it until my boyfriend called me out on it last week. We have a class together and as we were walking in he said, “You nod all the time in class, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone nod as much as you do.” It didn’t really bother me when he said it because I thought of it as a positive thing, “I am paying super close attention, and I just understand everything my teacher is saying! Yay!” But after our lecture today, I feel really self-conscious about it. Granted, it really isn’t that big of a deal...but, I have always prided myself in being someone who does not “suck up” to anyone, regardless of the situation. I hate it when people are fake in order to get people to like them. So, needless to say when I heard that I myself am a person who relies on ingratiation literally on an everyday basis, I was mortified!

In conclusion, I’d like to share a very important life lesson with everyone! Well, there’s a pretty good chance everyone (but me) learned this lesson a long time ago, but I’d like to share it just in case. :) Okay, I played basketball my freshman and sophomore years here at SU, and my freshman year I met a senior we called “A.G.” (I guess I like quotations today). That year, our coach split us up into groups, and decided that each group was going to perform a song of our choice to the team. Of course, the song had to be motivational, entertaining, and the lyrics had to be changed so that they would pertain to basketball. I loved my group and found the song we created, a stellar rendition of Soulja Boy- Crank That... (Don’t judge me!!), thoroughly entertaining. Thus, I bragged and talked our song up to everyone. Evidently, this isn’t what you’re supposed to do. Luckily, A.G. informed my of my mistake before I’d done too much damage. That is, she introduced me to self-handicapping. I’m not claiming to never have engaged in self-handicapping prior to that day, but I did learn a new use for it. Specifically, I was taught that instead of talking yourself up, you should provide an “out” in case no one besides you thinks your song is cool. So, with the help of A.G., I engaged in self-reported self-handicapping. Instead of bragging about how great our song was, I explained that I thought it was really funny because I already have really funny memories involving that song, and that there were a ton of inside jokes that came into being while we created our song. I made excuses for our groups potential failure. However, now that I don’t need the excuse, since I’m not performing it for the class :), I can brag and say that our teammates did enjoy our song! Maybe the outcome would have been different had A.G. not come to my rescue and stopped me from celebrating my fame before I got my big break.

Berglas, S., & Jones, E. E. (1978). Drug choice as a self-handicapping strategy in response to noncontingent success. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36, 405-417.

Kassin, S., Fein, S., & Markus, H. R. (2008). Social Psychology. Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

Arkin, R. M. (1981). Self-presentation styles. In J. T. Tedeschi (Ed.), Impression management theory and social psychological research (pp. 311-333). New York: Academic Press.

and, Dr. Giuliano’s lecture on Monday, February 15, 2010!

Oh the errors we make

Personally I’m super interested in clinical psychology, so I found the counterfactual thinking heuristic as something that could be taken advantage of in therapy. Specifically, the counterfactual thinking heuristic refers to people’s reflection on situations and events in order to generate alternative outcomes that could have happened but didn’t. Both positive and negative events have different psychological effects that are dependent on how people think about “what might have been.” Therapists and counselors could take advantage of this heuristic by urging patients to prepare for potentially bad situations (e.g. results of a wife’s CT scan for a brain tumor) by imagining the worst possible outcome. Ideally, if the patient can come to grips with a horrible hypothetical situation they will be more prepared to deal with it should it become a reality.

Another concept I realized I use almost daily in my personal life is Bem’s self-perception theory. The theory states that by observing your own behavior, you learn about yourself. Kassin, Fein, and Markus (2008) include a quote in their textbook in order to clarify the concept. E. M. Forster asked, “How can I tell what I think ‘til I see what I say,” which demonstrates the type of questions that the self-perception theory attempts to address. The theory would argue that you don’t know, oftentimes you can only make inferences about your behavior by watching the behavior itself. The book provides examples such as realizing the extent of your anger only after listening to how fiercely you were arguing. Personally, I provide evidence for this theory fairly regularly. I am extremely indecisive! So, when I make small decisions, like which restaurant I’d like to eat at for dinner, I narrow my choices down to two (e.g. Chipotle, and Chick-fil-a), and then say, “I’m going to Chipotle!” out loud. If I don’t feel satisfied when I say this I proceed to say, “I’m going to Chick-fil-a!” and see if that feels better. I’ve started to use this same procedure on my friends and they love it!

Lastly, I thought it was really funny that Dr. Giuliano talked about “road rage” or driving in traffic as an example of the actor-observer effect. My dad is a perfect example! The actor-observer effect is a type of fundamental attribution error and it occurs when people see others behavior as a reflection of their personality, but see their own action as dependent on the situation. My father thinks practically every driver on I-35 during rush hour is a “bad driver, and idiot” who “has no clue what they’re doing.” It has always really annoyed me, and I always defend the other drivers because he has no clue what is causing them to drive the way they do...Me listing the many possible reasons, other than their stupidity, for their sub-par driving skills never fails to annoy the shit out of my dad, so I’ve recently kept my mouth shut. I’d rather try to keep his blood-pressure low than defend random people who have no idea we’re talking about them.

Kassin, S., Fein, S., & Markus, H. R. (2008). Social Psychology. Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.