Self-concept: your self-concept (identity) reflects your stable ideas about who you are; relatively stable.

• is multifaceted

**Johari Window—we all have them but they are different for each individual: 

1) open window, I know and everyone else knows; 

2) hidden, I know about myself and reflect on it but am not willing to reflect on other people; 

3) blind, what others know about me but that I don't recognize in myself (mostly negative)

4) unknown, the dimensions of yourself that no one knows

• It is partly subjective.

What parts are objective (factually observable) vs. subjective (based on impressions of ourselves)?

• It is enduring but changeable.

How does the self-concept develop?

Many factors affect our self-concept:

• Personality and biology:

  • Personality: pattern of behavior and ways of thinking that characterize a person, inherent to you, not learned

• Culture and gender roles: observe who is socializing with you

• Reflected appraisal: the process by which a person's self-concept is influenced by their beliefs concerning what others think of them; mirror other people's judgments.

• Social comparisons

  • Reference groups: the people that we do social comparisons with
    

• We manage our self-concept through self-monitoring

  1. Awareness of how we look, sound, and affect others

• We manage our self-concepts through self-fulfilling prophecy

  1. A situation in which a prediction causes people to act and communicate in ways that make the prediction come true.
     

Self Esteem:

Your self-esteem is your subjective evaluation of your value and worth.

• Can influence behavior, how we see ourselves and others, and school and work performance

• Affected by our culture and sex

• Three fundamental needs

  • Control: motivation to maintain some degree of control over our relationships;

  •  Inclusion: Need to belong to a social group and be included in the activities of others. 

  •  Affection: one's need to give or receive expressions of love and affection.

Positive and Negative cycles.

Difference between image (public self, desired thing I want to project) and self-concept (perception of who I think I am).

Image Management:

• Image management means adjusting our behavior to project a desired image.

• Image management is collaborative: image depends on others accepting what I put out there for it to work. 

• We manage multiple identities: some people interact in only specific contexts.

• Image management is complex: we manage multiple identities in some settings, and sometimes they are at odds. 
  

We face 3 face needs:

Understand dramaturgy: every person is a playwright and actor in their life; front stage and backstage

• Fellowship face: the desire to be included, and have people like and accept me.

• Autonomy face: the ability to be someone others don't impose on me, I have control of time and resources, and I don't get steamrolled.

• Competence face: need people to respect me and acknowledge that I am capable and have skills (intelligence, etc). Drives out to seek out hobbies and careers in which we will excel. 
  

Face-threatening act: smth about your public or desired image is not working out for you (critique, etc). Deal with humor, and alternative explanations and brush them off, ignore them.

EX: not getting into a sorority, slips ups, trip-ups.

Self-disclosure: act of intentionally giving others information about ourselves that we believe to be true but we think they do not already have.

• Intentional

• Truthful

• Self-disclosure varies in depth and breadth.

• Social penetration theory: layers of the onion, penetrating surface of someone reaching depth

Breadth (range of topics)

Depth: intimacy of topic, gets more intimate with time.

The amount of self-disclosure can vary among relationships

A gradual process of trying to feel each other out. 

Norm of reciprocity: a social expectation that resources and favors provided to one person in a relationship should be reciprocated by that person.

Benefits of self-disclosure:

• Enhancement of relationships.

• Release emotions (rant, get feelings off chest)

• Disclosure provides space for support and help

• Reciprocity

• Help of others

Risks of self-disclosure:

• Put people off because of honesty

• Betray confidence

• Lack of reciprocity comes off as one-sided

• Rejection

• Feel obligated to share back

• Violates people's privacy

• Hurt others

Disinhibition effect: the tendency for people to say or do things online that they wouldn't do in person.