Social Self

Self

the individual's conscious, reflexive experience of a personal identity separate and distinct from other individuals

Self Awareness

Awarenesss of self as entity that is distinct from others & environment

Mirror Test

A child has a mark placed on their head and is placed in front of a mirror. If the child looks into the mirror and looks around for other people, they haven't achieved self-concept yet. If they touch the mark on their forehead, then they have.

Prefrontal Cortex

the frontmost portion of the frontal lobes, especially prominent in humans; important for attention, working memory, decision making, appropriate social behavior, and personality

Cultural Affects on Neural responses time self-evaluation

Ex. Americans show more neural activity in personally, rather than in other countries there is more of a relationship between the self & and others

Culture Self Experiment

- Partipcants Japanese & American fill self-report measure on Individual & Collective values

- FMRI recorded while participants made self-judgements taking general takes

- Self Judgement Tests

Sociometer theory (Leary)

Internal monitor of social acceptance/rejector

Self-Esteem

Need to belong evolutionary adaption & self-esteem

Self Discrepancy Theory

holds that we have three selves:

1) actual self: way we see ourselves as we currently are

2) ideal self: person we would like to be

3) ought self: our representation of the way others think we should be

- the closer these 3 are to one another, the higher our self-esteem or self-worth will be

What are the results of Ought & Actual Self together and apart?

Together: Feelings of serenity

Apart: Feelings of aniexty, guilt & shame

What are the results of Ideal & Actual Self together and apart?

Together: Satisfaction

Apart: Depression, frustration, Sadness & disappointment

Actual Self

the self that people believe they are

Ought Self

the person others wish and expect you to be

Ideal Self

Who you want to be

Self-Affirmation Theory

Suggests that people will try to reduce the threat to their self-concept posed by feelings of self-discrepancy by focusing on and affirming their worth in another domain, unrelated to the issue at hand

How to maintain self esteem

Self presentation timeline

Self-Presentation

presenting the person we would like others to believe we are

Social Status

A measure of one's social standing obtained by combining factors such as education, income, and occupation

Self Serving Bias

Own their successes, blame on their situation or not

Self-Efficacy Theory

the beliefs become a primary, explicit explanation for motivation, belief that you are capable of carrying out a specific task or of reaching a specific goal.

Learned Helplessness

If someone has low self-efficacy this can develop, leading to a perception of complete lack of control master a task

Self-Evaluation Maintenance Theory

The idea that people experience dissonance when someone close to us outperforms us in an area that is central to our self-esteem. This dissonance can be reduced by becoming less close to the person, changing our behavior so that we now outperform them, or deciding that the area is not that important to us after all.

Strategy’s to deplete Self-Evaluation Maintenance Theory

- Stop Caring: distance oneself from domain, but with consequence

- Distance yourself

- If Domain central to Self Concept: Distance self from relationship & task

Self-Handicapping

the strategy whereby people create obstacles and excuses for themselves so that if they do poorly on a task, they can avoid blaming themselves

What can be the reasons for someone to self-handicap?

- Do something could be potential cause for future poor performance

- Make true cause of performance - unclear could lack ability, could also be handicap yourself

- Can make performance decrease, but also protects your self-esteem

Ostracization

to exclude, by general consent, from society, friendship and conversation

Consequences of being Ostracized

- Lower body temp

- Physiological stress response

- More affilative behavior

- More aggression

- Painful even when ostracized by a computer or hated indivuals, or when being excluded results in benefits

Social Pain = Physical Pain (DeWall, et al., 2010)

- Brain areas usually active during phsyical pain are also active when experiencing social pain

- Taking Tylenol can reduced the subjective experience of painful social rejection and reduce activation pain of social networks

Social Pain = Physical Pain Experiment

- Experiment: Took 1 500-mg pill of Tylenol immediately after waking up each day, another 500-mg pill an hour before going to sleep

- Control: Took placebo on same schedule

- Results: Over time, Tylenol lead to self reported pain caused by social rejection

Social Psychology

Use scientific methods, "understand & explain how the thought, feeling, behavior, [ and physiological responses] of individuals are influenced by actual, imagined implied presence

ABC's Social Psychology

Affect: Emotions, feelings & Mood

Behavior: Verbal & non action

Cognition: Thought, sensation, perception, processing & memory

The Cross-group friendship study (Page-Gould, Mendoza-Denton, & Tropp, 2008)

a well-known psychological study that explored how intergroup friendships can reduce anxiety and improve attitudes between different social groups, particularly between racial or ethnic groups.

spotlight effect

overestimating others' noticing and evaluating our appearance, performance, and blunders (as if we presume a spotlight shines on us)

public self-consciousness

a personality characteristic of individuals who focus on themselves as social objects, as seen by others

looking-glass self

a term coined by Charles Horton Cooley to refer to the process by which our self develops through internalizing others' reactions to us

basking in reflected glory

taking pride in the accomplishments of other people in one's group, such as when sports fans identify with a winning team

Methods of Self-Presentation

- instrumental: we want to influence others and gain rewards

- expressive. We construct an image of ourselves to claim personal identity and present ourselves in a manner that is consistent with that image.

Methods of Self-Presenstion Expressive strategies

- ingratiation, the use of flattery or praise to highlight positive characteristics and increase social attractiveness

- intimidation, which is aggressively showing anger to get others to hear and obey.