Social Psychology - The Self

The Self

• Definition: Difficult to pinpoint, encompassing everything.

• Historical Perspective: William James (1890) distinguished between the "I" (the self as subject) and the "Me" (the self as object).

Development of the Self

• Recognizing the Self:

  • Mirror Self-Recognition:

    • Contingency (9-12 months): Understanding that actions correspond to current actions (e.g., seeing your arm move in a mirror when you move your own arm).

    • Non-contingent (15-18 months): Recognizing oneself in images or videos.

  • Other Species: Bottlenose dolphins, killer whales, bonobos, orangutans, chimpanzees, Asian elephants, certain birds (e.g., pigeons).

Development of the "Me"

• Self-Concept:

  • The sum total of a person’s thoughts and feelings about oneself.

  • Attributes and characteristics that describe who you think you are.

  • Dynamic and changes over time, becoming more nuanced with experience in different situations.

Self-Concept: Data Overload

• Encompasses everything we know about ourselves.

• Experiences, skills, knowledge, group memberships, relationships, possessions.

• Working/Spontaneous Self-Concept: The parts of self-information that are active at a given time.

Working Self-Concept

• Determinants:

  • Relationships and situations.

  • The idea of multiple selves.

  • Examples: Behavior in class vs. at a party, with friends vs. with family.

• Self-Schemas:

  • Central beliefs people hold about themselves.

  • Guide the processing of information.

  • Example: Beliefs about intellectual abilities.

Introspection

• Looking inward to consult one’s thoughts, feelings, attitudes, beliefs, values, and personalities.

• While it seems like a good way to learn about yourself, it is prone to biases and limited insight.

Biased Self-Perceptions

• Self-Enhancement Motives: Motivation to feel good about oneself.

• The Above Average Effect (or Better Than Average Effect):

  • Most people rate themselves above average on valued personality traits and abilities.

  • Especially for abstract traits like kindness and friendliness.

  • Example: Survey of one million HS students in US. 70% rated self above average for, 85% for agreeability, 25% rated self in the top 1% on each trait!

  • Meta-analysis (2020): 950,000 participants from multi-cultural samples showed robust above-average effects; valued traits can be culturally specific.

• Memory Distortion: Tendency to distort the past to inflate one's sense of importance/achievement.

  • Example: Bahrick et al. (1996) found that college students often inflated their past grades when recalling high school transcripts.

Limited Insight

• We often know how we feel, but not why.

• Misattribution Research:

  • Schwarz & Clore (1983): Life satisfaction reports were significantly impacted by whether it was a sunny or rainy day.

    • Sunny day → report being more satisfied with their lives.

• Affective Forecasting: Predicting how one will feel in the future.

  • People tend to overestimate the impact of events on their future happiness.

  • Brickman et al. (1977): Lottery winners did not report greater general happiness than non-lottery winners; they reported less pleasure from everyday life events.

• Dunn, Wilson, & Gilbert (2003): College students seeking dormitory assignments. Desirable vs. Undesirable dormitories. Asked to report how happy you would be next year (after living in the desirable or undesirable dormitory). One year later, students asked to report happiness.

Why are we so bad at predicting how we would feel

• We’re more resilient to negative events than we think we are.

• Underestimating personal coping mechanism.

• We focus on single event and neglect effects of other life experiences.

  • Lottery winners still have family stresses and day-to-day concerns.

  • New stressors may emerge (e.g., people asking for money).

• Other explanations: Cognitive dissonance.

Self-Perception

• Inferring knowledge about the self by watching our behaviors & emotional responses in different contexts.

• Observing our own behavior and creating explanations post-hoc.

• Example: Dr. Tommy keeps watching and still talks about Everything, Everywhere, All at Once → Therefore, I must like it!

• Facial Feedback Hypothesis: Changes in facial expression → change subjective experience of emotion.

  • Asked ppl to read a comment, one condition they asked ppl to bite a pencil horizontally (smiling muscles), other one they asked them to hold the pencil with their mouth from the top of the pencil (o shape with their mouth), ppl in the first condition said they found the comment funnier

Social Comparison

• Comparing attributes, interests, and perceptions with others to learn more about the self.

• Often occurs in uncertain, important, and/or evaluative domains.

• Example: Academic aptitude.

• Comparison Target: Most informative when compared to similar people (age, skill).

• Example: Me vs. Rafael Nadal

Individualistic vs. Collectivistic Societies

• Individualistic Societies:

  • “The squeaky wheel gets the grease.”

  • Emphasis on individual rights, personal autonomy, self-realization, and personal identity.

  • More “Western” societies (e.g., Australia, Great Britain, Canada, and the US).

• Collectivistic Societies:

  • “The nail that stands out gets pounded down.”

  • Emphasis on loyalty and adherence to groups, personal identity within the group, concern for others.

  • More “Eastern” societies (e.g., China, India, Japan, Taiwan).

Independent vs. Interdependent Self-Construal

• Independent Self-Construal:

  • Desire to ‘stand out’ or be unique.

  • If no one else likes EEAaO, good for me! I'm unique!

• Interdependent Self-Construal:

  • Desire to “fit in” with others.

  • If no one else likes EEAaO, I should probably stop watching!