The Self

2 types of self awareness

private

public

private self awareness

when an individual becomes temporarily aware of private, personal aspects of the self

Happens when people see their face in a mirror or experience physiological arousal which can lead to them reflecting on their emotional state.

public self awareness

  aware of public aspects of themselves that can be seen and evaluated by others.

when drawing attention to yourself.

Public awareness associated with evaluation apprehension. – when focus on others giving you attention realize they’re being appraised by others.

self consciousness

chronic self-awareness

can be public or private- not mutually exclusive

private self consciousness

heightened emotions, more likely to be true to their personal beliefs and more accurate self-perceptions

Less likely to experience ill health due to stress as more in tuned to physiological well being.

More likely to suffer from depression and neuroticism: pay attention and ruminate on feelings of sadness and discomfort.

public self consciousness

more likely to adhere to group norms, avoid embarrassing situations,

worry about their appearance

judge others based on their appearance.

self-schemas

how we expect ourselves to think, feel and behave in certain situations

Each self-schema consists of our perception of self (eg. shy) and then incorporates our experience on this dimension (quiet in class).

self-concept

the entire collection of beliefs, knowledge and perceptions you hold about yourself

self discrepancy theory: self-concept maintenance

comparison to the self

Awareness between actual and ideal self through comparison but also your emotional response to that discrepancy

Actual self: how we are at that moment

Ideal self: point of reflection for how we want to be including traits, personalities and characteristics.

Ought self: traits and characteristics an individual believes they should possess, due to duty, obligation or responsibility

ideal and ought self act as self-guides

greater psychological discomfort when discrepancies against actual self and self-guides

2 types of discrepancies

2 discrepancies in self-discrepancy theory

Actual-ideal discrepancy: absence of positive outcomes, dejection based emotions : sadness and disappointment

Actual-ought discrepancy: presence of negative outcomes, agitation-based emotions: anger, fear and nervousness

some negative emotions good as can motivate change, too much means people give in to immediate impulses to feel better rather than focus on distant goals.

2 conditions for social comparison rather than upward comparison

Domain where individual is successful is irrelevant to us. Their success doesn’t threaten our self-concept. Their success adds to our abilities, doesn’t challenge them.

Certainty about our ability in that domain. Success of someone else doesn’t pose a threat. Their success adds to our perception of our success.- if both good at psychology must be on a top psychology course eg. top set Maths

social reflection

comparison to other individuals

derive self-esteem from accomplishments of those close to us without considering our own accomplishments in that domain- why parents are often so proud of their children’s accomplishments.

Can also evoke upwards comparison of their achievements and our own- which provokes negative self-esteem

4 strategies to maintain positive self-concept during upward comparisons

§  Exaggerate the ability of the person outperforming us- they are a genius. So comparison is no longer relevant.

§  Switch to comparing to someone less successful, downward comparison resulting in higher self-esteem.

§  Downplay similarity to target of comparison or physically and emotionally distance yourself from them. – stop talking to clever student.

§  Devaluing the dimension of the comparison: academic success not as important as a good social life etc.

self esteem

their subjective appraisal of themselves as intrinsically positive or negative, and can have significant implications for psychological functioning.

self-esteem & parents

Children with highest self-esteem often brought up by authoritative parents. They often place demands and discipline while being warm, responsive and supportive.

Children with low self-esteem and confidence often brought up with authoritarian (overly strict without responding to a child’s needs) or permissive (giving into their child’s every desire) parents.

self-esteem & age

Self-esteem amongst children aged 6-11 was relatively unstable.- maybe as young people still developing their self-concept

Self-esteem remains relatively stable between 20s and mid adulthood- fully developed sense of self and are less affected by temporary life changes.

By 60 self-esteem stability declines. – life changes: retirement, ill health and death of others in the same generation.

low self-esteem

less likely to make the effort to make themselves feel good.

dampen happy memories by distracting themselves

less likely to plan goals to help improve their mood

low self-esteem can be maladaptive, people with low self-esteem feel worse after a negative experience

high self-esteem

associated with high levels of aggression and violence in certain circumstances- only when narcissistic

narcissistic: people who respond to ego threat in an aggressive manner, unstable high self-esteem

motive for self-assessment

a desire to know the truth about ourselves, positive or negative to reduce uncertainty about our abilities or characteristics- complete diagnostic tests to evaluate the performance of the individual and distinguish their performance to the performance of others when evaluating the self

motives for seek information for self-validation

confirm what we think about our self-concept, even if negative is true, if so, this increases our sense of stability and security. In an experiment people chose the evaluator who agreed with their self concept, if their self-concept was negative chose the evaluator who viewed them negatively to assess their abilities.

motives for self-enhancement

seek information that lets us see ourselves in a positive light. People with a low self-esteem look for a compromise between the two, information that paints them positively, without completely disconfirming their negative self-concept.

most powerful self-motive, most important for shaping behaviours

self-affirmation theory

to maintain positive self-esteem

When self-esteem damaged or threatened focus on and publicly affirm positive aspects about themselves to maintain a positive self-concept- can be more likely to be helpful if previously told they were unhelpful

self-attributing theory

  to maintain positive self-esteem

When people are making attributions about themselves based on their behaviour, they show self-serving bias

Self-enhancing bias- attributing success to internal characteristics

Self-protecting bias- attributing our failure to external characteristics

People have memory bias in favour of self-enhancing information

People more critical of information that criticizes them than enhances them.

group & self esteem

Get positive self-image from their group memberships- important to group members their group is evaluated positively as when the social self is salient they incorporate their traits from traits of the group.

Group members motivated to hold positive social or collective identity by comparing themselves favorably with members of the group

Basking in reflective glory: people derive a positive self-concept from the success of other group members, even if they haven’t attributed to it eg. wearing college merch if their football team won, taking it off if they lost

Cutting off reflected failure: if part of a group that did bad, distance themselves from the group

Individualistic Culture

children encouraged to think of themselves as individuals

more individual sense of self

collectivist culture

children encouraged to be obedient and respectful of their family and to conform to societal norms

collective sense of self

biculturalism

immigrants have original culture and that of majority ‘host’ spciety

struggle to cope- either assimilating identity of host society or retaining original immigrant identity

people adept at maintaining their original sense of identity and sharing an identity with the host society are bicultural

alternation model

possible to deal with multiple identities by understanding cultural assumptions that guide behaviour and use this to think and behave appropriately in each- alternating cultural orientation depending on the situation can have sense of belonging in 2 cultures without compromising individual’s sense of cultural identity

bicultural individuals more at ease interacting with people outside their ethnic minority and better problem-solving strategies and interpersonal skills

higher levels of self-esteem and less experience with racial tensions and inter-ethnic conflict

higher cognitive functioning, better mental health and higher self-esteem

but not committed to either group, potentially causing negative reactions from both- so must hold positive attitudes towards both cultures and communicate effectively

also need culture of origin to be strongly represented in host society to provide a support system and buffer bicultural individual from stress.