The Self, Theories of Personality, Social Thinking and Influence, Interpersonal Communication
Self-Concept
An organized collection of beliefs about the self
(Piaget)
Affected by feedback from others, social contact, cultural values
Possible Selves
Thoughts and ideas about the person you might become in the future
Self-Perceptions
Actual self: qualities people think they actually possess
Ideal self: qualities people would like to possess
Ought self: qualities people think they should possess
Self-Discrepancies
Mismatches between the actual, ideal, and ought self
Three Factors of Discrepancies
Amount of discrepancy experienced
Person’s awareness of discrepancy
Whether or not the discrepancy is important to the person
People cope with discrepancies by…
Change behavior to match ideal self
Rationalize
Avoid self-awareness
Social Comparison Theory
We compare ourselves with others in order to assess and/or improve our abilities (Festinger)
Reference Group
Set of people who are used as gauge in making social comparisons
Individualism vs. Collectivism
Individualistic cultures put personal goals ahead of the group, want to stand out
Collectivist cultures put group goals ahead of themselves, want to “blend in” with society
Self-Esteem
One’s overall assessment of worth as a person
Trait Self-Esteem
An enduring sense of confidence in a person
State Self-Esteem
Dynamic feelings about the self that change with the situation
Why is self-esteem important?
Strongly connected to happiness
High self-esteem makes people more likeable, cope better, have better relationships
Roy Baumeister
Lots of work in the area of the self, self-esteem, etc
Narcissism
Preoccupied with fantasies of success, believe they deserve special treatment, react aggressively when their ego is threatened
Two dimensions of parenting
Parental acceptance/responsiveness and parental control/expectations
Authoritative:
Warm and nurturing, high expectations, set boundaries with the child
Permissive:
Allow kids to do what the want, result is generally immature and aggressive
Authoritarian:
Very strict and don’t negotiate, high standards, results in lower self-esteem
Negligent:
Uninvolved, careless, don’t seek to have a close relationship, result is poor social and academic outcomes
Meta-Analysis
Multiple studies used to draw a singular conclusion
Automatic Processing
How we handle information without much deliberate decision-making
Controlled Processing
Active thinking required for important decision-making and analysis
Self-Attributions
Inferences that people draw about the causes of their own behavior
Internal:
Causes of behavior are from personal traits, abilities, feelings
External:
Behavior comes from situational demands
Stable:
The cause of behavior is unlikely to change over time
Unstable:
The cause of behavior is subject to change
Explanatory Style
Use similar casual attributions for a wide variety of events in one’s life
Optimistic:
Attribute setbacks to external, unstable, and specific factors
Pessimistic:
Attribute setbacks to internal, stable, and global factors
Two motives guide self-understanding
Self-Assessment:
Desire for truthful information about oneself
Self-Enhancement:
Desire to maintain positive feelings about oneself
Methods of self-enhancement
Downward social comparison:
Compare oneself with someone whose problem’s are bigger
Self-serving bias:
Attribute successes to personal factors and failure’s to situational factors
Basking in reflected glory:
Enhance one’s image by announcing association with successful people
Self-handicapping:
Sabotage performance to make an excuse for possible failure
Ego Depletion Model of Self-Regulation
People have a limited amount of self-control
Self-Efficacy
Belief about your ability to perform behaviors that should lead to expected outcomes
Associated with Bandura
Sources of Self-Efficacy
Master Experiences:
Learning new skills, persisting in face of failure
Vicarious Experiences:
Watching others learn new skills
Persuasion and Encouragement:
From internal and external sources
Interpretation of Emotional Arousal:
Tend to get nervous when trying new things
Self-Defeating Behaviors
Seemingly intentional actions that thwart a person’s self-interest
Deliberate Self-Destruction:
Trade-Offs:
Immediate pleasurable outcomes that have detrimental long-term effects
Counterproductive Strategies:
Persisting in ineffective strategies to achieve a goal
Public Self
An image presented to others in social interactions
Impression Management
Usually conscious efforts by people to influence how others think of them
Impression Management Strategies
Ingratiation: Behaving in ways to make oneself likable to others
Self-Promotion: Accenting your strong points in order to earn respect
Supplication: Acting weak or dependent in order to get favors from others
Negative Acknowledgement: Admitting your flaws
Self-Monitoring
Degree to which people attend to and control the impressions they make on others
High: More concerned about making favorable impressions
Low: More likely to express their true feelings or attitudes
Personality
An individual’s unique constellation of consistent behavioral traits
Personality Traits
A durable disposition to behave in a particular way in a variety of situations
EX: Honest, moody, impulsive, friendly, etc
Big Five
“higher-order” traits
Extraversion: Retiring, sober, reserved vs. Sociable, fun-loving, affectionate
Neuroticism: Calm, secure, self-satisfied vs. Anxious, insecure, self-pitying
Openness to experience: Practical, routine, conforming vs. Imaginative, variety, independent
Agreeableness: Ruthless, suspicious, uncooperative vs. Soft, trusting, helpful
Conscientiousness: Disorganized, careless, impulsive vs. Organized, careful, disciplined
Psychodynamic Theories
Focus on unconscious mental forces that shape out personalities
Freud, Jung, Adler
Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory
Personality is governed by unconscious forces that we cannot control
Childhood experiences play a significant role in determining adult personality
Personalities are shaped by the manner in which individuals cope with sexual urges and aggression
Three Structures of Personality
Id: Primitive, instinctive component of personality that operates according to the pleasure principle
Ego: The decision-making component of personality that operates according to the reality principle
Superego: The moral component of personality that incorporates social standards about what represents right and wrong
Layers of Awareness
Conscious: One is aware of at a particular point in time
Preconscious: Material just beneath the surface of awareness that can be easily retrieved
Unconscious: Material well below the surface of conscious awareness but that nonetheless exerts great influence on one’s behavior
Defense Mechanisms
Largely unconscious reactions that protect a person from painful emotions such as anxiety and guilt
Repression
Keeping distressing thoughts and feelings buried in the unconscious
Projection
Attributing one’s own thoughts, feelings, or motives to another person
Displacement
Diverting emotional feelings from their original source to a substitute target
Reaction Formation
Behaving in a way that is exactly the opposite of one’s true feelings
Regression
Reversion to immature patterns of behavior
Rationalization
Creation of false but plausible excuses to justify unacceptable behavior
Identification
Bolstering self-esteem by forming an imaginary or real alliance with some person or group
Psychosexual Stages
Oral: (0-1 years), erotic focus on mouth, weaning
Anal: (2-3 years), erotic focus on anus, toilet training
Phallic: (4-5 years), erotic focus on genitals (masturbating), identifying with adult role models, coping with Oedipal crisis
Latency: (6-12), no erotic focus, sexually repressed, expanding social contacts
Genital: (Puberty onward), focus on genitals (sexual intimacy), establishing intimate relationships, contributing to society through working
Jung’s Analytical Psychology
Personal Unconscious: similar to Freud’s unconscious layer
Collective Unconscious: A storehouse of latent memory traces inherited from people’s ancestral past that is shared with the entire human race
Adler’s Individual Psychology
Our most important drive is not sexuality, but striving for superiority
Compensation
Efforts to overcome imagined or real inferiorities by developing one’s abilities
Inferiority Complex
Exaggerated feelings of weakness and inadequacy
Psychoanalytic theories contributed many important insights
Unconscious forces can influence behavior
Internal conflict may play a key role in psychological distress
Early childhood experiences can influence adult personality
People do rely on defense mechanisms to reduce unpleasant emotions
Psychodynamic theories have been criticized for…
Poor testability - too vague, difficult to measure
Depend too heavily on clinical case studies
Many central hypotheses have been contradicted by empirical evidence
Male-centered, even sexist, view of personality
Behavioral
Theoretical orientation based on the premise that scientific psychology should study observable behavior
Pavlov’s Classical Conditioning
A type of learning in which a neutral stimulus acquires the capacity to evoke a response that was originally evoked by another stimulus
Extinction
The gradual weakening and disappearance of a conditioned response tendency
Unconditioned Stimulus (US)
A stimulus that naturally and automatically triggers an unconditioned response
Unconditioned Response (UR)
An unlearned, naturally occurring response due to an unconditioned stimulus
Neutral Stimulus (NS)
A stimulus that elicits no response before conditioning
Conditioned Response (CR)
A learned response due to a conditioned stimulus
Dogs Salivating
Dogs would salivate (UR) when they were brought food (US)
The bell (NS) didn’t do anything until it was presented with the food (US)
The bell eventually causes the dogs to salivate (CS)
Thorndike’s Law of Effect
Responses to a situation that are followed by satisfaction are strengthened; responses that are followed by discomfort are weakened
Skinner’s Operant Conditioning
A form of learning in which voluntary responses come to be controlled by their consequences
Positive Reinforcement
Occurs when a response is strengthened (increases frequency) because it is followed by the arrival of a pleasant stimulus
EX: Given a cookie after being polite
Negative Reinforcement
Occurs when a response in strengthened (increases in frequency) because it is followed by the removal of an unpleasant stimulus
EX: Beeping when you don’t use seatbelt
Reinforcement
Any event that strengthens the behavior it follows
Punishment
Occurs when a response is weakened (decreases in frequency) because it is followed by the arrival of an unpleasant stimulus
Positive Punishment
Adding something aversive
Negative Punishment
Taking away something desirable
Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory
Observational Learning: Occurs when an organism’s response is influenced by the observation of others, who are called models
Self-Efficacy
The belief that one can master a situation and produce positive outcomes
Observational Learning
Learning that involves acquiring skills, strategies, and beliefs by observing others
Pay attention to and understand consequences of others’ behavior
Social, cognitive, and behavioral factors influence learning
Humanism
Emphasizes the unique qualities of humans, especially their free will and their potential for personal growth
Roger’s Person-Centered Theory
Personality only contains one construct (the self)
Congruent
Our ideas about ourselves match our actual experiences
Incongruence
Our ideas about ourselves do not match reality, which undermines our well-being
Conditional Love
Children develop incongruent self-concept because they do not feel worthy of love
Unconditional Positive Regard
Children feel worthy of affection and develop congruent self-concepts
Maslow’s Theory of Self-Actualization
Human motives are organized into a hierarchy of needs
Humans have an innate drive towards personal growth and the highest need is self-actualization
Hierarchy of Needs
An arrangement of needs, according to priority, in which basic needs must be met before less basic needs are aroused
Self-Actualization
Fulfillment of one’s potential
Self-Actualizing Person
Commitment to personal growth, accurately tuned into reality, balanced personality, thrive on their work, etc
Humanistic Concepts are criticized for…
Poor testability
An unrealistic view of human nature
Inadequate evidence
Eysenck’s Theory
Personality as a hierarchy of traits, function of genetic differences in “conditionality”
Special interest in explaining variations in extraversion-introversion
Heritability Ratio
An estimate of the proportion of trait variability in a population that is determined by variations in genetic inheritance
Evolutionary Psychology
Examines behavioral processes in terms of their adaptive value for members of a species over the course of many generations
Terror Management Theory
Human cognition is unique and allows us to be aware of our own mortality
Creates great anxiety, can be reduced by cultural worldviews that promote self-esteem and faith
Reminding people of their mortality leads to increased self-esteem as an anxiety buffer
Psychological test
A standardized measure of a sample of a person’s behavior
Standardization
Refers to the uniform procedures used to administer and score a test
Test Norms
Provide information about where a score on a psychological test ranks in relation to other scores on that test
Self-Import Inventories
Personality scales that ask individuals to answer a series of questions about their characteristic behavior
EX: 16 Personality Factor, NEO Inventory
Projective Tests
Ask individuals to respond to ambiguous stimuli in ways that may reveal aspects of their personalities
EX: Rorschach test, Thematic Apperception Test
Person Perception
The process of forming impressions of others
Snap Judgments
Judgments made quickly and based on only a few bits of information and preconceived notions
Automatic Processing
Used when we are not motivated to form an accurate impression of another person
Systematic Judgments
Require more controlled processing and tend to occur when forming impressions of others that can affects our happiness and welfare
Atributions
Inferences that people draw about the causes of behavior and events
Internal Attributions
People attribute the cause of others’ behavior to personal dispositions, traits, abilities, or feelings
External Attributions
People attribute the cause of others’ behavior to situational demands or environmental constraints
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
Expectations about a person cause them to behave in ways that confirm the expectations