• They may lead to mindlessness (characterized by processing information passively and signaled by reduced cognitive activity, inaccurate recall, and uncritical evaluation of the information at hand). • They may lead to selective perception (actively choosing which stimuli to focus on). • They may involve undue influence (giving greater credibility or importance to something than is deserved).

• Fundamental attribution error (the tendency to overemphasize the internal causes and underestimate the external causes of someone else’s behavior) • Self-serving bias (attributing our own successes to internal factors and our failures to situational or external effects) • Interaction appearance theory (we change our attributions of a person’s physical appearance as we engage in more communication with them)

• Self-concept (awareness and understanding of who we are as interpreted and influenced by our thoughts, actions, abilities, values, goals, and ideals) • Self-esteem (how we feel about ourselves in a particular situation or context) • Self-efficacy (the ability to predict our actual success from self-concept and self-esteem; our perception of the likelihood of us achieving particular outcomes in our communication)

• Self-presentation (intentional communication designed to show elements of self for strategic purposes) • Self-monitoring (the ability to watch our environment and others in it for cues about how to present ourselves in various situations) • Self-disclosure (revealing ourselves to others by sharing personal information)

• Self-actualization (the feelings and thoughts we get when we know that we have negotiated a communication situation as well as we possibly could have) • Self-adequacy (assessing our communication competence as sufficient or acceptable, resulting in feelings of contentment or a desire for self-improvement) • Self-denigration (when we criticize or attack ourselves by placing undue importance on weaknesses or shortcomings)