chapter 4 self-concept

1.  self-concept : your mental representation or overall sense of you 

•  Representations called self-schemas -> help process information about yourself 

• Different from person to person 

• Can change with time and situations 

2. Influences on self-concept 

1. Physiological 

   • Self-concept is rooted in the brain 

   • Clive wearing -> lost ability to turn STM to LTM 

   • Memory lasts less than 30 seconds 

   • Brain imaging -> frontal cortex more active when we think about ourselves 

   • Also important for social behavior 

   • Animals with self-concept ->  ex : elephants and dolphins 

How do we know? Mirror test -> shows whether an animal recognizes themselves 

2. Gender and identity 

   • F -> define themselves more in relational terms 

   • M -> define themselves more in terms of social groups 

1.   Reaction to social rejection 

   • F -> more self- criticism 

   • M -> more self esteem 

    2.       Gender role stereotypes – how accurate are these statements? 

3. Self-concept myths 

1. Introspection -> thinking about your own beliefs, attitudes, emotions and motivations 

   • A good way towards self-knowledge? Research finds its not 

   • Ex: attitudes don't always match our behavior 

   • Better way to self-knowledge 

   • Self-discrepancy theory -> self-concept influenced by awareness of our ideal vs actual self 

   • Motivates us to change behavior to match ideal self-image or sometimes to escape self-awareness 

2.      affective forecasting -> predicting the impact of certain events on our feelings and attitudes 

Problem :  

• Predict greater impact of + and – events 

• Not realistic 

4. Self esteem 

1. Global self-esteem 

   • Person's overall positive or negative view of themselves 

   • "I love myself" " I'm smart" 

2. Specific self-esteem  

   • Person's positive or negative view of a particular aspect of themself  

   • " I'm a good friend" " I work hard at math" 

3. Self-esteem and school performance (GPA) 

   • Correlations 

   • Global -> .30 

   • Specific -> between .45 and.70 

4. Narcissism according to Baumeister 

   • High self-esteem 

   • Unjustified 

   • Unstable 

• Some characteristics of narcissists :  

  • Supersensitive to criticism 

  • When self-esteem challenged leads to anger 

  • Needs others to support self-worth