Social Psychology Essay: Tesser's SEM and Self-Improvement Strategies

This essay delves into the realm of social psychology, focusing on Tesser's Self-Evaluation Maintenance (SEM) model, which explains how individuals strive to maintain their self-esteem through comparison and reflection. The essay explores the dynamics of closeness, relevance, and performance in relationships and how they impact self-evaluation. It also examines various strategies individuals can employ to enhance their self-concept, including acceptance, self-belief, focusing on the present, avoiding negative comparisons, and setting realistic expectations. Furthermore, the essay addresses the concept of stereotypes, acknowledging that they may contain a kernel of truth. The paper provides insights into the complexities of social interactions, self-perception, and the factors that influence an individual's self-worth. The essay draws upon various research studies to support the arguments and provides a comprehensive understanding of the SEM model and its implications.

Running head: SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
Social psychology
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author’s Note:

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Tesser's self-evaluation maintenance mode
SEM or the self-evaluation maintenance Model invented by Tesser talks about the ways
in which individuals try to maintain proper self-maintenance of their own personality by using
two means. These two means are comparison and reflection. (Mason et al., 2019) has stated that
all the individuals have a common tendency of evaluating the achievements of people around
them. In other words, individuals are naturally happy when their spouse or partners are achieving
something good. Similarly, they feel bad or even threatened when they find their spouse or
partners committing some offendable deeds (Kumar, 2017).For aa instance if a spouse is more
verbal and smart in the community, the other partner might feel threatened or jealous. This often
arises when one partner earns more money than the other and is well known in society. This
might create a threat to the self-evaluation of the other partner so they will always try to avoid it.
This can be termed as a negative comparison.
On the other and the positive comparison is when one spouse is getting fame or
recognition in society due to the accomplishments made by another spouse (Matsushita &
Fukuta,m2019). Thus this situation will always boost up the self-evaluation and the self-
maintenance of one spouse and this situation is always desirable. However, Gerber, Wheeler, and
Suls (2018) have argued that one individual or spouse might feel happy and recognize good
performance of the other spouse but they will only try to be good at some. In other words, even if
spouse A compares himself with the good and positive achievements of spouse B, he might only
like to incorporate some selective good aspects within himself. The spouse will only try to
incorporate those traits or achievements that are self-defining or relevant to that spouse.

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There are three basic parameters like closeness, relevance (importance), and
performance. Closeness comes out differently in different types of relations. Kruglanski et al.
(2018) have suggested that for the spouses who are in a committed relationship, the closeness
tends to increase when one of the partners is making some good accomplishments. This is
because of the fact that the partners in a committed relationship always try to support and help
each other. They want to make sure that they are learning and improving themselves from the
good or positive achievements of one another. Thus in these cases, it can be said that closeness
must help in strengthening the positive feelings.
Strategies available to people to enhance their self-concept
There are many different strategies that individuals can use in order to work over their
self-improvement. People come across so many different personalities in their daily lives. Thus
they are able to analyze the traits present within them along with those that are present with other
people in their surroundings like their friends, spouses, partners, and others. However, in order to
make sure that they are able to identify and work over the dominant traits within themselves,
they have to use many strategies
Acceptance
Honest acceptance is the key to enhancement of self-concept or self-esteem. Individuals
have to honestly admit the strengths and the weaknesses that are present within them (Liu, Li &
Russell, 2017). In other words, they must never overlook the weakness or the areas of
improvement that are present within them. Individuals must not get disheartened by seeing their

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partners or their spouses performing well. However, they have to honestly accept and admit their
imperfections and their flaws rather than proving themselves as totally perfect.
However, as per the theory of SEM by Tesser, focusing too much on the flaws might
make people overburden them with a heavyweight that might destroy and bring down their self-
confidence. Thus individuals must not distance themselves from their spouses on finding their
spouses doing well. They must try to learn the good and positive aspects from their partners
Self-belief
Self-belief is one of the most important factors in the process of developing one's self-
interest. People must never give up their self-confidence. They have to make sure that they are
retaining their strengths in order to overcome their fear both in their personal and in their
professional lives. In order to keep up the self-belief, all the individuals have positive self-talk.
They have to keep on questioning themselves regarding their areas of weakness and their areas
of strength. It is advised that all the individuals are capable of keeping themselves away from the
self-defeating and negative thoughts (Lin, 2016). They have to take in all the positive vibes from
around them that will help them in enhancing their self-confidence. Though there will be
different thoughts coming in mind it is in the hands of the individuals to decide which they
would ignore. One of the best means of improving self-confidence and self-worth is to reflect
upon past success. This will always help in inculcating a feeling of self-belief and the will power
of never giving up. All the individuals will be able to know that a firm determination will be able
to help them deal with all their frustrations and they will once again be able to rise up to their
self-worth.

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Focusing on the present time
Reliving the past memories might often sound interesting. However, it must be noted in
this context that there are both positive and negative memories in the past. Thinking about the
positive past memories will help in gaining the strength to overcome the difficulties. However, if
individuals keep on thinking about the negative events that happened in the past, then they will
not be able to focus on their future. Focusing or thinking about the sad memories of the past
often makes them suffer from depression. Thus they have to focus on their present occurrences
and forget about the negative incidents that took place in their past.
Avoiding unfaltering comparisons
Tesser’s model of SEM says that the two most important tools that help in maintain the
self-evaluation is comparison and reflection. However, Beller and Bender (2017) have argued
that comparisons are of different kinds. People must know how to carry on the positive
comparisons that would help them in working over their areas of weakness (Sternberg, 2018).
Extreme levels of comparisons often create a negative feeling within individuals and they may
suffer from depressions. Comparisons like “I will never be as pretty as she is” or “I will never be
as thin or as rich as she is”. These comparisons with others will never be of any help (Beach,
2016). Thus the only comparison that all respective individuals must carry on is with them. This
will help them to evaluate their past and focus on their present so that they can also improve their
future.
Using a set of realistic expectations
The self-concept must be developed by keeping in realistic and practical expectations in
mind. In other words, people must not try to achieve any unexpected or unrealistic goals. This

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will only make them nervous and depressed after they end up in a total failure. Thus they must
always try to focus upon goals and objectives that are realistic and achievable within a certain
specific time frame.
Stereotypes have a kernel of truth
Stereotyping is an age-old phenomenon that have cropped into our society. The common
notion that is usually associated with stereotyping is negative. People think that stereotyping is
bad as it discourages the growth and development of people. However, it must be noted in this
context that there are some advantages of stereotyping (Gill, Kim & Ranaweera, 2017).). It
helps in forming a detailed understanding of the whole aspect subject matter about the
stereotype. For instance the stereotype that is men are bigger than women might initially sound
very bad or harsh against the women. However, individuals who have critical analysis ability
must be able to understand that in order to understand the truth about this stereotype they must
go deep inside it (Bordalo et al., 2016). Biologically on an average estimate, it can be seen that
males are taller than height than females.
However, the variability stereotype also exists, where we can see that some women may
be taller than some men. Speaking on average level men usually, have a taller height than
women. Same is the case with the stereotyping that says men are physically stronger than
women. In the ancient context, physical strength was often seen as the only aspect for the
survival of the fittest. However, in the modern day scenario females are economically and
socially independent. They are on par with males almost at everything. However, the stereotype
still holds well that physically or biologically women are less strong or more vulnerable than

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men. Thus there is a truth about the different types of stereotyping when seen in a broader
context.

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References
Beach, S. R. (2016). Expanding the Study of Dyadic Confl ict: The Potential Role of Self-
Evaluation Maintenance Processes. In Couples in conflict (pp. 113-124). Routledge.
Beller, S., & Bender, A. (2017). Theory, the final frontier? A corpus-based analysis of the role of
theory in psychological articles. Frontiers in psychology, 8, 951.
Bordalo, P., Coffman, K., Gennaioli, N., & Shleifer, A. (2016). Stereotypes. The Quarterly
Journal of Economics, 131(4), 1753-1794.
Gerber, J. P., Wheeler, L., & Suls, J. (2018). A social comparison theory meta-analysis 60+ years
on. Psychological bulletin, 144(2), 177.
Gill, T., Kim, H. J., & Ranaweera, C. (2017). Ethnic stereotyping in service provision: when do
stereotypes affect the performance expectations and evaluation of ethnic service
providers?. Journal of Service Theory and Practice, 27(3), 520-546.
Kruglanski, A. W., Shah, J. Y., Fishbach, A., & Friedman, R. (2018). A theory of goal systems.
In The Motivated Mind (pp. 215-258). Routledge.
Kumar, N. (2017). Self-esteem and its impact on performance. Indian Journal of Positive
Psychology, 8(2), 142-147.
Lin, J. H. (2016). Need for relatedness: A self-determination approach to examining attachment
styles, Facebook use, and psychological well-being. Asian Journal of
Communication, 26(2), 153-173.

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Liu, J., Li, L., & Russell, K. (2017, May). What becomes of the broken hearted?: an agent-based
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(2019). Self-discrepancy theory as a transdiagnostic framework: A meta-analysis of self-
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Matsushita, T., & Fukuta, N. (2019, April). A Social Networking Support System to Rise up the
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