Self-attribution processes
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the self serving bias - We tend to attribute the negative things that happen to us to external factors and the positive outcomes to dispositional factors.

egocentricity - tendency to exaggerate the importance of our own role in shaping things - we each recall with a sort of selective memory

cognitive conservatism - others, not us have to change their position

self-handicapping - e.g. if a person consistently talks about the importance of doing well but inevitably behaves in such a way as to create unnecessary hurdles he/she is engaged in self-handicapping behaviour.

Ego states

Eric Berne was associated with transactional analysis which involves the structural analysis of personality:

child ego state    - contains all the impulses and behaviours that come naturally to a child / infant; contains the "recordings" of early life experiences and how we respond to them; two parts - the natural child - spontaneous and free; the adapted child - that part that has learned to do what others (usually parents) insist on.

adult ego state - operates as a gatherer of information - organises, assimilates, seeks solutions to problems

parent ego state - attitudes, behaviours and values incorporated from other sources - again two sides - the critical parent - shows up when you are instructing others in what to do and how to do it; the nurturing parent - consoling, comforting or caring for another person

There can be examples of imbalance: the constant child - who wants to be taken care of, babied, punished, rewarded; the constant parent - who often treats others as though they were children; the constant adult - who is concerned primarily with facts and information processing rather than feeling.

Other Notes in this Category

1. Attitudes
2. Attitudes and Behaviour
3. Attribution
4. Conformity
5. Crowds and Territoriality
6. Goffman - Symbolic Interactionist
7. Impression Formation
8. Inference Model
9. Intuition model
10. Is there a conformity personality?
11. Obedience
12. Persuasion
13. Prejudice
14. Self Concept
15. Self-attribution processes
16. Social Influence
17. Stereotypes and Stereotyping
18. The Primacy-Recency effect
19. Zimbardo

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