The Social Self and Self-Knowledge
Icebreaker & Dialogue
Icebreaker Question: If you were able to live to the age of and retain either the mind or body of a -year-old for the last years of your life, which would you want?
Interactive Activity: Students were asked to sort a list of adjectives (e.g., Hardworking, Capable, Optimistic, Tense, Disorganized, etc.) into categories to examine their own self-schemas.
Origins of Self-Knowledge
Definition: Self-knowledge consists of the descriptions we have for ourselves, developed through social interaction.
Appraisals from Others: * Looking Glass Self: Utilizing others' perceptions (explicit or implied) to determine who we are. * Reflected Self-Appraisals: Our beliefs about what others think of us. This is distinct from how others actually see us, as feedback can be distorted or misinterpreted. * Relational Self: Our sense of identity is drawn from significant others in our lives.
Social Comparison and Cognitive Biases
Social Comparison Theory: Individuals compare themselves to others to determine where they "stand" on specific attributes, especially when objective indicators are lacking. * Downward Comparison: Comparing oneself to those worse off. * Upward Comparison: Comparing oneself to those better off.
Self-Serving Bias: The tendency to perceive oneself favorably, attributing successes to internal characteristics and failures to external circumstances.
Better than Average Effect: A tendency to rank oneself higher than most people on positive attributes.
The Dunning-Kruger Effect: A cognitive bias where individuals with little expertise in an area mistakenly overestimate their skill due to "ignorance of ignorance."
Self-Perception Theory
Observation of Behavior: People learn about themselves by watching their own attributes or behaviors as an outside observer would.
Context for Learning: Self-perception is most active in new or unusual situations and during major life transitions (e.g., entering college).
Organization of Self-Concept
Self-Schemas: The specific categories used to sort personal attributes. The sum of these schemas constitutes the Self-Concept.
Compartmentalized Organization: Self-schemas are almost uniformly positive or negative. This leads to mood swings based on which schema is currently activated.
Integrative Organization: Self-schemas contain a mix of both positive and negative attributes. This typically results in a more level mood and stable self-esteem.