March 21, 2019: Lora Park

(University at Buffalo, SUNY)

http://arts-sciences.buffalo.edu/psychology/faculty/faculty-directory/park.html

Thinking about the Self: Implications for Motivation, Well-Being, and Interpersonal Outcomes

Humans have the remarkable capacity to think about and reflect on themselves. In this talk, I discuss three core themes that arise from this ability to self-reflect. First, humans are likely to evaluate themselves against personal standards of value and adopt contingencies of self-worth. When people base their self-worth in domains such as academics or financial success, they may incur costs to the self and to others. A second consequence of thinking about the self is that people show differences in affect, motivation, and behavior depending on how they imagine they appear in the eyes of others. Such patterns are evident among people with Appearance-based Rejection Sensitivity, as well as women who are concerned about appearing romantically desirable to men in STEM contexts. Finally, the ability to reflect on the self enables people to think about the nature of happiness, which has implications for how people spend their time, their goal-related affective forecasts, and overall well-being.