Social Self: Chapter 3

The nature of the social self

The social me being what we know about ourselves from social behaviors

The accuracy of self knowledge

• Large parts of knowledge come from construal

Why is self knowledge not accurate?

• Home to bias

• a product of self production

Why can self knowledge sometimes be accurate?

• Better judges of our own internal thoughts and beliefs

  • i.e being optimistic, pessimistic etc

Tactics or organization of self knowledge

• Self schemas = storage build on past experiences and beliefs

• A way to store facets of ourselves

• Important to how we view the social world

Aschematic vs Schematic for a trait

• A-schematic means people who do not associate a particular trait with themselves

• Schematic means people do associate that trait with themselves

  • more quick to find examples of this trait

  • become defensive when it is questioned

Origins of sense of self

• Family and other socialization agents influence social traits by observing role models for the “correct” behaviors

• Reflected self appraisals

Reflected self appraisals

• belief about what others think of one’s self

• Internalizing how we think people see us

Situationism and the social self

• How we act changes given the social situation.

• Gives rise to the working self concept

The working self concept

The idea that only a subset of the self is brought out based on the context

• The social self however is malleable in context but retains some consistant elements

Western vs Asian self construal

• Self can be an independent from others however it can shift depending on certain cultural phenomena

• Independent self construal promotes inwards focus, interdependent promotes outward focus

Low vs high level construal

High level construals are more abstract and not related to eminent goals. Low level construals are more concrete and are related to goals are nearer in the future. Additional low level construals are inhibits self control.

Self verification theory

Theory that people strive for others to see them how they see themselves

Self handicapping

Taking part in self defeating activities that provide an excuse for poor performance

Self discrepancy theory

Theory that suggest that people hold beliefs of who they officially are in addition to who they want to be and who they ought to be

Self maintenance theory

the desire to maintain, protect, increase and protect positive views of self

Sociometer hypothesis

describes self-esteem as our own internal monitor of how acceptable we are to others

Motives driving self evalutation

Better than average effect

Self esteem

Self affirmation theory

Self enhancement theory

Self affirmation theory

The theory that people will affirm themselves in a domain that is not currently threatened by failure to remain positive about their self worth

It was also shown to minimize defensive behaviors and reduce stereotyping of individuals.

High self enhancers

People who self affirm a lot handle stress better than those who do not.

Prevention and promotion focus

• Prevention focus occurs with respect to ought self ideals

• Promotion focus occurs with respect to the ideal self

Ideal vs ought self

• Ought self is concerned with external demands we feel we must honor

• Ideal self is concerned with hopes and dreams

Automatic self control strategies

Follows an if/than format

Higher chance of attaining goal it the are more “ ifs “

Higher effectiveness long term

Ideal and ought self focuses

• Ought self focus is more common in East Asians countries than in western countries they are more concerned with prevention focuses

• Ideal self focus is common in western cultures as try are more concerned with promotion focuses