desire to engage in a behavior simply because it is interesting or enjoyable—would be undermined by an extrinsic motivation—the desire to perform the behavior as a result of external rewards or pressures (Cerasoli, Nicklin, & Ford, 2014; Durik & Harackiewicz, 2007; Harackiewicz, Durik, & Barron, 2005). My daughter may reconstrue reading as something that she does for money rather than for sheer enjoyment. Hence she will infer that she must only be reading for money and may stop reading in the absence of this external reinforcement.
Figure 4.2 Vicarious Self-Perception
Source: Adapted from Study 2, Goldstein, N. J., & Cialdini, R. B. (2007). The spyglass self: A model of vicarious self-perception. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92, 402–417.
How Facial Expressions Can Affect Your Emotions
Participants who held a pen in their lips rated a comic as less humorous than those who held a pen in their teeth.
This anecdote illustrates the overjustification effect, which occurs when one’s intrinsic motivation—such as enjoyment experienced by simply enacting the behavior—is weakened by the presence of extrinsic motivation (Forehand, 2000; Lepper, Greene, & Nisbett, 1973; Lepper, Henderlong, & Gingras, 1999). In one study, giving small children a reward for playing with special, colorful felt-tipped markers made them less likely to voluntarily choose to play with those same markers later (Lepper et al., 1973). Although external rewards may sometimes deter desirable behavior, they are often useful. For instance, rewarding children by praising them for working hard rather than being smart can increase self-motivation and school achievement (Henderlong & Lepper, 2002).
There is another arena where Bem’s self-perception theory offers a useful way of understanding oneself: emotion. Earlier we described how people may not always know how they feel, especially when introspection can itself change one’s feelings. Is it possible that, like with attitudes and motivation, observing our behavior may help us determine what we are feeling? According to the facial feedback hypothesis, the answer is yes, at least under certain circumstances (Dzokoto, Wallace, Peters, & Bentsi-Enchill, 2014). For instance, Strack, Martin, and Stepper (1988) showed cartoons to participants who evaluated their funniness while holding a pen either between their teeth or in their lips. Participants with the pen between their teeth—which just happens to produce a facial expression that mimics a smile—rated the comics as more humorous than did those with it in their lips—a pose that causes a frown-like expression. Similarly, Kleinke, Peterson, and Rutledge (1998) found that simply watching oneself in the mirror intentionally posing angry or happy facial expressions led people to feel angrier or happier than others who made the expressions but did not see themselves in the mirror. Here again we see how people infer their inner states by observing their own behavior.
A Chinese census taker collecting personal information. Self-reports are often accurate and can be very useful, particularly when the information sought is noncontroversial and the respondent is unlikely to wish to hide his answers from the researcher.
AP Photo/Liu mingxiang - Imaginechina.
As surprising and counterintuitive as self-perception theory may be, it has wide-ranging application and has received a great deal of empirical support. Note though that Bem (1967) did not argue that we rely exclusively on observing our own behavior when determining our attitudes, feelings, and personality traits, but that we do so only when are uncertain about them. Earlier in this chapter, we asked how it is that we come to know ourselves. So far we have discussed two ways in which people can learn about their self-concept: introspection and self-perception. But there is alternative approach: looking to other people for feedback about how we are doing. We will elaborate on this method in the section on self-evaluation and self-enhancement below.
Self-Perception Theory: Idea that peoples sometimes infer their own attitudes in the same way that a third party might infer their attitudes: by watching their behavior
Intrinsic Motivation: Desire to engage in a behavior simply because it is interesting or enjoyable
Extrinsic Motivation: Desire to perform a behavior as a result of external rewards or pressures
Overjustification Effect: When one’s intrinsic motivation—such as enjoyment experienced by simply enacting the behavior—is weakened by the presence of extrinsic motivation
Facial Feedback Hypothesis: Idea that people infer their feelings from their facial expressions
Think Again!
1 What are the limits to introspection?
2 What does self-perception theory say about how we learn about the self?
3 Try listing a couple of activities that you are intrinsically and a couple that you are extrinsically motivated to do.
Doing Research: Questioning Self-Reports And Surveys
The most commonly used method for obtaining data in social psychology is the self-report, which is an individual’s conscious response to a question or situation. A direct question asking about your attitude toward your college is a self-report. Self-reports are often accurate and can be very useful, particularly when the information sought is noncontroversial and the respondent is unlikely to wish to hide his answers from the researcher. For example, self-reported gender is likely to be accurate, whereas attitudes toward members of another race is less likely to be. Researchers use self-reports to obtain a variety of data, including people’s opinions, feelings, behaviors, and physiological experiences (e.g., hunger or pain). Three advantages of self-report measures are that they are relatively easy to construct, are inexpensive, and can be utilized in a variety of research methods, including surveys, interviews, and many experiments.
There are also several disadvantages to using self-reports, whether in surveys, interviews, or experiments. One is that self-reports may not always provide accurate information, either as a result of participant psychology or the construction of the questions (Krosnick, Lavarakas, & Kim, 2014; Schwarz, 2007b). Researchers have extensively investigated the psychology of self-reports and have identified a number of undesirable response effects that can undermine the accuracy of the answers. Response effects are unintended variations in question responses that stem from procedural aspects or features of the survey instrument, such as the wording of a question or the order of the questions (Heintzelman, Trent, & King, 2015; Helmes, Holden, & Ziegler, 2015; Schwarz, 1999; Tourangeau, Rips, & Rasinski, 2000). These survey features may affect how participants understand questions, the role of memory and judgment in generating potential responses, and how participants report their answers (Schwarz, 1999, 2007a; Tourangeau et al., 2000).
One response effect is the acquiescence bias, which is the tendency to agree with or say “yes” to questions (Savalei & Falk, 2014). This is of particular concern when conducting cross-cultural research, because clear culture-based differences have been found (Riemer & Shavitt, 2011). For instance, East Asians are more likely to agree with questions than are certain other groups (Grimm & Church, 1999). Another type of response effect is the extremity bias, wherein respondents provide answers that are at the extremes of the response options (Levashina,
