The Social Self

Do all creatures have a sense of self? Tests to determine if other animals do?

• humans do

  • Kids develop ability around 15–18 months

• Tests

  • Red dot test

  • Yellow snow test

• Self recognition is a form of self understanding

  • Some animals can do this

  • Must be a differentiation: ‘for there to be a me, there must be a you’

    • Development of our identities

    • Socially constructed and socially dependent to develop a sense of self

Red dot test

• apes raised with others vs. in isolation

• Certain primates (not many), dolphins, elephants, magpies, and some ants

• Seeing a reflection and reaching for the red dot on their forehead —> discovers that their reflection is them

Yellow snow test

Dogs pass (maybe) — less time on their own spots, no marking

Self concept

A person’s beliefs about their roles, traits, abilities, experiences

• “the belief you have about yourself”

• Separate from self esteem, concept is more likely a meta evaluation

Working self concept

The aspects of your self-concept that are salient at a given time

• we’re more likely to mention aspects of our self concept that make us different from those around us

• A more activated part of your identity depending on who you’re with

• Might want to highlight aspects of yourself (maybe even to make you different from those around you)

• Ex. Talking with your family in Spanish might shape how you behave and how you talk with your family vs. how you are with those you talk to in English

• Ex. Prof Hughes in a room of professors might not be professor-salient —> thinks more about how he is Argentinian + likes to play soccer

Self concept clarity

We prefer when our self concept feels clearly defined, internally consistent, and consistent across time

• ideally we want thins to feel consistent about ourselves, otherwise feel conflict between identities

• Self verification

Self verification

Seeing out feedback that is consistent with our existing self-beliefs (your specific attributes/broad views about yourself)

• Hughes’ grad student found people like to seek out feedback that is consistent with/ how people see themselves

• Ex. If you see yourself as not being good at basketball —> someone tells you you’re great at it → you will feel what they say is inauthentic because it doesn’t match with your reality

• Tendency to prefer feedback that reaffirms your underlying belief

  • People with depression, etc. affects self esteem because of this

  • Really hard to change peoples beliefs about themselves

Self complexity

A self concept that has many facets

• easier to cope with threats to any particular aspect

• Having a more complex identity = there’s more there to buffer about yourself

  • Ex. Rejection of a skill, but there are other sources/activities that tell you that your skills are good despite the rejection

    • Helps increase subjective happiness and well being

Origins of self knowledge

1. Direct feedback

2. Reflected appraisals

3. Social comparison

4. Self perception

5. Self narratives

Direct Feedback

The information received from others about our traits and abilities

• tends to be skewed positive, but still useful stream of info to learn things about yourself

Reflected appraisals

Our perception of how others perceive and evaluate us

• highly subjective, subject to error

• Particularly important to adolescence (a time of self uncertainty)

• Ex. Hughes perceiving that he feels the students are bored of his lecture —> will have a big influence on how he thinks about his teaching

Social comparison

The act of comparing our traits and abilities with the traits and abilities of others

• festinger (1954)

• Upward social comparison

• Downward social comparison

• Better than average effect

Festinger (1954) - theory of social comparison

• people want to know where they stand

• Prefer objective standards of comparison

• No objective standard available, use a social standard

• Typically compare ourselves to similar others

Upward social comparison

Comparing to better

• motivating if you assimilate (feels similar)

• To improve or serve as a role model

Downward social comparison

Comparing to worse

• boosts self-esteem if you contrast (feels separate)

• You feel threatened by that certain domain

Better than average effect

The tendency to perceive ourselves as better than the average person

• why? “Unskilled and unaware” (in part)

  • Ex. Skills to know if you are a good speller, you must be a good speller to evaluate

• Suggests people think of themselves in an overly positive way + generally we want to

Exception to better than average effect

• Exception: worse than average effect for difficult tasks

  • Ex. Driving an airplane (equally difficult and equally unlikely to Evernote, not just you) — heuristic and judgement error

Self perception

Learning about ourselves by observing our own behavior

• facial feedback hypothesis

• Over justification effect

Facial feedback hypothesis

Facial expressions influence internal states through self perception

Overjustification effect

External rewards for behavior can undermine sense of internal commitment

• when we pinpoint how much something caused a behavior —> we underestimate our contribution to it —> effects our intrinsic reasons

Self narratives

We continually ‘write’ our own story or narrative

• redemptive narratives

• Explains why people like writing diaries —> continually constructing a story about ourselves

What about introspection as a source of self knowledge

Mood diary study (Wilson et al., 1982)

• shows people are not particularly great at introspection because many of our mental processes occur outside of our consciousness

• Students asked to keep track of their mood for 5 weeks

  • Asked to identify which factors affected their moods vs. what actually affected their moods —> showed no good correlation

  • We’re really good at post-hoc rationalizations

Is accurate self knowledge important

Tenney, Vazire, Mehl (2013) — Accuracy predicts higher-quality relationships

• used EAR device

Influence of culture

• can affect our sense of self

  • Interdependent self concept (collectivist)

  • Independent self concept (individualist)

• Culture influence guides our emotional expressions + emotional value

Interdependent self concept

Defined primarily in relation to other people

• Japan, Pakistan, etc.

• Collectivist

Independent self concept

Defined primarily by unique characteristics, abilities, thoughts, and feelings

• individualist

• USA, most of Western Europe, etc.

How different are men and women really? (Influence of gender)

• Hyde (2005) — differences are few and small

  • Slight differences in trustworthiness, anxiety, conscientiousness, assertiveness, etc.

• Mehl et al. (2007) — stereotype that women talk more is bogus

  • Used EAR device

  • Both roughly say same amount of words each day

Social role theory

Gender differences in self-concepts arise from historical and cultural pressures, less from biological ones

• children’s toy preferences (leading people to believe there are gender differences)

• Observing men and women in stereotyped roles, reinforcing this idea (that there is a stereotype)

Self Esteem

The global or overall evaluation that one has of oneself (positive or negative)

Trait vs. state self esteem

• most people have high self esteem overall

• Self esteem fluctuates over time

  • Self esteem changes from moment to moment, but is overall stable

• Trait self esteem is stable in individual people and stable across time

Contingencies of self worth

Sources of self-esteem which differ from person to person and across time

• approval, physical attractiveness, fitness, intelligence

What is self esteem for? Why do we have self esteem? (Sociometer theory (Leary))

• self esteem is an evolutionary metric for how we’re doing socially

  • System monitors social inclusion, activates social pain if inclusion is low, motivates restoration of inclusion

  • Evidence: self esteem is particularly sensitive to rejection

    • An animation of three people throwing a ball to each other, eventually two people throw the ball to each other and exclude you, made participants feel really bad

    • People who are lonely are at risk for experiencing a variety of ailments (mental and physical [ex. Cardiovascular disease])

Self evaluation maintenance model (tesser) [maintaining self esteem]

• Tesser: others’ successes can threaten our self-esteem (or not)

• Basking in reflected glory

Basking in reflected glory

Associating with someone who is succeeding in a domain that doesn’t affect us

What if someone is doing better than us in our domain (how to maintain self esteem)

• improve performance

• Reduce closeness

• Reduce importance of the domain

What are the problems with self esteem

• hard to control — partly genetic, partly reflects successes and failures (especially social ones)

  • Set of correlation studies made schools decide to start programs to improve self esteem for kids (giving everyone trophies, tell everyone they’re doing great)

    • Doesn’t work because people know how they’re doing, so being told that you’re doing great despite performance and will make you feel bad

• Not beneficial in all forms — high but unstable self-esteem causes interpersonal problems

  • can cause a person to become more defensive, leading to interpersonal problems

• Defending self-esteem can be detrimental

  • in the same vein of defensiveness, should focus more on improving the things that improve self esteem, instead of acting on the self esteem directly

Self compassion

Self-kindness, recognition of shared experience, mindfulness

• treating others how we treat ourselves

• Method for nursing self esteem

Self regulation

Processes by which people initiate, alter, and control their behavior to pursue goals

• requires delay of gratification and resistance to temptation

Delay of gratification

Forgoing a desirable outcome now for a more desirable outcome later

• marshmallow task

Ego depletion

Like a muscle, self control resources can be exhausted through use of

• radishes and cookies study (Baumeister et al., 1998)

  • People can eat either radishes or cookies in this study, people who ate radishes instead of cookies gave up on a difficult puzzle task later on

Radishes and cookies study (Baumeister et al., 1998)

• first kept participants in a room that smelled like fresh-baked cookies, then showed them cookies and chocolates

• Experimental group had to eat radishes instead (control group got to eat treats)

  • Radish-eaters “exhibited clear interest in the chocolates, to the point of looking longingly at the chocolate display and in a few cases even picking up the cookies to sniff at them”

• Puzzle task: radishes group made far fewer attempts and spent less than half the time solving the puzzle compared to treat eaters and a control group (no eating task)

Do some people have more self-control than others

• Walter mischel’s studies with children: 1 marshmallow now or 2 marshmallows later

• Predicts outcomes decades later

• Based on environmental factors as well (major confound in the study)

  • Kids who grew up in a poorer background were more likely to eat the marshmallow because not certain they’ll get a meal later

How can you improve self control

• set up appropriate incentives

• Implementation intentions

• Consider altering your perception of the goal

• Goal disengagement

Implementation intentions

If-then plans to engage in some behavior (then) in response to some cue (if)

• If I drink a beer, then I will run a mile

• If I do my homework today, then I will watch a movie later

Action identification theory

• altering perception of the goal

• Goals can be construed in abstract or concrete ways

• Abstract is motivating, concrete is manageable

Goal disengagement

Sometime its good to let go of a goal

• ex. Prof hated engineering and sucked at it, so he let go of the goal instead of persisting

Self presentation

Controlling, regulating, and monitoring the information we provide about ourselves to create a desired impression

• audience may be present or imagined

• Impression can differ for different audiences

• Can be detrimental

Multiple audience problem

Arises when desired identity differs for two audiences present at the same time

Self-handicapping

• example of how self-presentation can be detrimental

• Protecting one’s self presentation (and self-image) by creating a handy excuse for failure

  • increases chance of failing at a goal

  • Ex. Didn’t try too hard on an application handicaps you to not achieve to your fullest extent

How can we maximize self growth

• Pursue goals that meet your fundamental needs

  • self determination theory

• Find your flow

• Practice mindfulness

• Engage in self affirmation

• Reinterpret threats as challenges

• Travel

Self determination theory

People function best when needs for connectedness, autonomy, and competence are met

Find your flow (Csikzentmihalyi)

Feeling of being completely absorbed in a challenging activity