THE SELF IN THE SOCIAL WORLD

Social Psychology Lec 2

Spotlight Effect

When we think everyone is staring at us

The Self

Sense of personal identity, who we are

Self concept

Thoughts & feelings you have for yourself

Self-schema

• Blueprint of who you are

• Affect how we evaluate ourself

Possible selves

Who we want to become, doing everything we can to be/not to be a person we like or avoid

Origins of the self

1. Family and other socialization agents

2. Current situation

3. Culture

4. Gender

5. Social comparison

Family & other socialization agents

Important foundation, family that encourages have an impact on who you are

Looking glass self

People as mirrors

Reflected self-appraisals

Beliefs about what others think about us

Working self concept

Subset of self-knowledge that is brought to mind in a particular context

Social comparison theoryy

1. Upward: compare ourselves to those who are better (for motivation)

2. Downward: compare people at a disadvantage (for ego boosting)

Self esteem

How we feel about ourselves

Types of self esteem

1. Trait self-esteem

2. State self-esteem

Trait self-esteem

Stable across time

State self-esteem

Momentary feeling and based on situations

Contingencies of self worth

1. Success

2. Failures

Self enhancement

Desire to learn about, maintain, increase positive self-view

Self affirmation theory

Affirmation to self

Self-verification theory

Affirmation from others on what we already know

Actual self

Who we are

Ideal self

Who we want to be

Ought self

What we should be in society

Self efficacy

Sense of competence we feel on a task

Locus of control

Degree to which people assume that events in their lives are internally/externally controlled

Internal locus of control

Events in life are based on your decisions

External locus of control

Events happen because of luck or faith

Learned helplesness

Helplessness we learned because of repeated failure

Self-serving bias

Tendency to attribute positive events to their own character but attribute negative events to external factors

Impression management

Attempt by people to get others to see them as they want to be

Self handicapping strategy

We sabotage and blame it to others

Basking in reflected glory

Act as if we have a role of other people’s success

False modesty

Saying negative things to yourself so that others can correct you

Ingratiation

To get people to like us, we stuck up to them (sipsip)

Intimidation

Act of making others do what you want to do out of fear

Self promotion

Present themselves as competent in order promote themselves

Exemplification

Try to project a good image, present ourselves as honest

Supplication

Damsel in distress, a strategy wherein individuals advertise their weaknesses or shortcomings in order to elicit an attribution of being needy from observers