Social Self (CH 3)
The Social Self
The self is not independent of environment
Constructed, maintained, and negotiated in the social environment
The social self is malleable (not static)
Person's particular nature or qualities that make a person unique and distinguishable from others
Traits: characteristic ways that you think, feel, and act that make you different
Individual self:
Beliefs about our unique personal traits, abilities, or preferences, talents, etc.
Ex: athlete would say they're good at basketball
Collective self:
Beliefs about our identities as members of social groups to which we belong
Relation self: Beliefs about our identities in specific relationships
Schema: knowledge structure consisting of any organized body of stored knowledge
Generalized knowledge about the world and how to behave in particular situations with different kinds of people
Type of schemas:
Situations
Traits
Ourselves
Objects
Types or groups of people
stereotypes
Self schema: cognitive structure, derived from past experience, that represents a person’s beliefs and feelings about the self in general and in specific situations
If we have self schemas in a certain domain:
We should process info more quickly in this domain
Restrictive evidence consistent with that domain quickly
Readily reject info that contradicts this schema
Influence our interpretation and judgments of ourselves and the social world
Ex: self schema about level of conscientiousness
Self-reference effect
Better memory for information related to ourselves
Origins of self knowledge:
Family and others
Family and socialization agents shape our sense of self by encouraging behaviors and providing opportunities
Ex: jewish girl grew up in jewish household doing all religious activities which caused her to have a sense of belonging to that group
Situationism
There is a relatively stable pool of self knowledge that are staples, but a large part of your “self” varies on this situation
Trait: average version of you that is relatively stable across time and situations
State: how you are in different situations, which changes based on context
Ex: students are free spirited in dorms, more reserved in classroom
Working self context: a subset of self knowledge that is brought to mind in particular context; experiences most relevant to the current situation
Ex: self related to one's relationship at forefront of mind when with romantic partner
Being distinctive and unique is also important to self concept
Depending on situation, we highlight the most distinct and unique parts of the self
Looking glass self:
A person's self grows out of societies interpersonal interaction and the perceptions of others
Individual shapes themself based on others perceptions of himself which leads to others confirming or reinforcing the person's perspective of themself
Reflected self appraisals: our beliefs about what others think of our social selves
Others reactions to us serve as a mirror
People laugh at your jokes→ you think ur funny
We internalize how we think others appraise us, not necessarily how others actually see us
Reflected self appraisal is not highly correlated with others appraisals
How we view ourselves is not always how others think of us
Culture
Individualistic vs collective
Gender
Across cultures, men have more independent and women have more interdependent views of self
Women likely to refer to relationships when describing self
Men prioritize uniqueness and differences
Women more attuned to external social cues whereas men more attuned to their internal responses
Differences may come from socialization
Portrayal in media
Treatment by parents
Friendships and groups
According to evolutionary theory: men are hunters, aggressors, women are nurtures(but diff cultures deal with gender in different ways)
Self construal: refers to how individuals defined themselves in relation to others
Relates to culture, gender, and independence vs interdependence
Social comparison theory: people compare themselves to others to evaluate their own opinion, abilities, and internal states
Likely to occur when
There is not clear objective standard
You experience uncertainty about yourself in a particular domain
Motivated comparisons:
Upward comparison(how far can i go?): when you want to improve something about yourself, compare with people who are better
Downward comparison(It’s not that bad): when you want to feel good about yourself, you compare yourself to people who are worse
We all have beliefs about ourselves, and we are constantly evaluating the beliefs about ourselves
Such evaluations determine our self esteem
self-esteem: the overall positive or negative evaluation an individual has of him/herself
Trait self esteem
An enduring level of regard for yourself
Relatively stable across time
State self esteem
Your current level of regard for yourself
Changes over a period of time (hours, days, weeks)
Contingencies of self worth
Self esteem is contingent on success or failure in domains that are important to their self (crocker and wolfe, 2001)
Crocker, Summers, Lu
In general:
Higher self esteem on days they were accepted
Lower self esteem on days they were rejected
Sociometer hypothesis:
Self esteem is an internal subjective index or market of the extent to which a period is included or looked on favorably by others
Self esteem helps us assess how we are doing socially
High self esteem: thriving
Low self esteem: having difficulties
We want to avoid social exclusion/rejection
Social pain=physical pain
Cultural differences in self esteem
Individuals care about self esteem
Collectivists care about self improvement
Heine (2001)
False feedback(failure or success)
Japanese participants who were told they performed badly worked longer on second task
Canadian participants only worked longer on second task when told they did well
Motives driving self evaluation
Self enhancement: We are motivated to evaluate ourselves positively
Self-enhancement:
Peoples desire to maintain and increase or protect their self esteem or self views
Better than average effect: most westerners think they are better than average on most personality traits (kindness, fairness, etc)
We judge others by what there like on average; we judge ourselves by what we're like at our best
Interpretation of reality: people sift their definitions in order to come out on top
You define “x” by the parts or x you possess, not lack
People can maintain an overall sense of self with, following psychology threatening information by affirming a valued aspect of themselves unrelated to the threat
Ex: if you get a poor grade on a test, you remind yourself of your artistic abilities
Self complexity: the tendency to define the self in terms of multiple domains that are relatively distinct from one another
Self verification: We are motivated to have views of the self that are accurate consistent and coherent
Self verification theory
People strive for stable accurate beliefs about the self
We have a memory that is more selective for self consistent information
Such beliefs give us a sense of coherence and allow us to more accurately predict outcomes for ourselves
Self regulation: process by which people initiate, alter, and control their behavior in the pursuit of goals, including the ability to resist short term awards that thwart the attainment of long term goals
Self discrepancy theory: people want to reduce discrepancy between their actual self and possible selves
Ought self: person you feel should be, the person others want you to be
Ideal self: the person you want to be
Actual self: the person you believe u currently are
When our actual self does not align with our ideal self, we typically feel → disappointed, sad, dejected, or despondent
When our actual self does not match our ought self, we typically feel → agitated, guilty, distressed, anxious
Promotion focus: focus on positive outcomes when working toward ideal self
More likely western cultures
Prevention focus: avoid negative outcomes when working toward ought self
More likely in eastern cultures
Implementation intentions: an if then plan to engage in goal-direction behavior whenever a particular cue is encountered
Goal: I want to be kinder to my roommate
If my roommate makes a snarky remark, ill ignore it
Self-presentation presenting the person what we would like others to believe we are
Impression management: attempting to control how other people view us
How we dress, public behavior, friends and associates, what we reveal about ourselves to others
Face: public image of ourselves, what we want others to believe
Self-monitoring: the tendency to monitor one's behaviors to fit the current situation or expectations of others
High self monitors shift their self presentation ad behaviors to fit the context
Low self monitors are more likely to behave according to their brown traits, regardless of context
HighL: concerned with what others think and try to react with appropriate behaviors
Low; somehow unconcerned with or unaware of social demands
Self-handicapping
We may not live up to the public self were trying to portray
Self handicapping tendency to engage in self defeating behavior to prevent others from assuming a poor performance was due to a lack of ability
We want to protect ourselves - save face
Example: partying the night before exam:
Do poorly, due to partying not ability
If you do well, you and others conclude youre really smart