Psychology of the Self
Psychology of the Self
Lecture 1~ January 8th
Historical Perspectives
William James (1890)
First systematic model of who the self is
I- self
Self as subject or knower
The subject of our experience
Thinks your thoughts
Feels your feelings
Experiences our life
Active agent
Architect of the me-self
Unless you are able to experience yourself, you won't be able to know who you are
Self-agency
The sense of the authorship over one’s thoughts and actions
Our knowledge and appreciation of being in charge of ourselves
Self-Awareness
An appreciation for one’s internal states, needs, thoughts, and emotions
Our understanding that we exist as an entity in space
That we have a physical body, and that body is ours
Self-Coherence
A stable sense of the self as a single, coherent, bounded entity
Our understanding that there are boundaries that we have, and we are separate from objects around us
Knowledge that my thoughts are my own thoughts and that others have their own thoughts
Understanding that everyone has their own subjective experiences
Self-Continuity
The sense that one remains the same person over time
We exist through time (past, present, future)
Me-Self
Self as object or “known.”
The object of our experience
The contents of who we are
Personality traits, opinions, preferences
The self-concept
More tangible
Material self (bodily self & possession) is the least important
Social self (Characteristics recognizable by others)
We all play different roles in life, and in those roles are different
Multiple others who recognize us and carry an image of us in their mind
May not all speak within the same voice
May be harmonious
May be discordant
An individual must selectively choose roles and suppress alternatives.”
Most important is the spiritual self
Personality
Moral
Judgments
Thoughts
beliefs
Contributions
First systemic conceptualization of the self within psychology
Paved the way for the future
Multi-component & multidimensional theories of the self
Hierarchical theories of the self
Ex. Conflict of multiple role-related selves
How self-esteem is a consequence of having multiple social selves that are in conflict with each other
Theories of the “Extended self.”
Self that goes “beyond the skin.”
Self that includes others as part of itself
Non-dualistic self
Symbolic Interactionists
Emphasize how social interactions with others shape the self
Self is viewed as a social construction, crafted through linguistic exchanges (symbolic interactions) with others
Self is a social construction
Complex construction of a self that can be experienced as…
Coherent
Intergrated
Authentic
Similarities
Focus on certain processes that are integral to the construction of the self
Imitation of others’ behaviour, attitudes, values, or standards
Adjustment of behaviour to garner the approval of salient socializing agents
Internalization
Adoption of..
Opinions that significant others are perceived to hold toward the self
Others’ standards, beliefs, etc., as our own
Differences
However, they differ in terms of their specific…
Formulation of each process or stage
Formulation of the consequences or outcomes of each process or stage
Emphasis on a particular process or outcome
James Baldwin (1897)
Construction of the self is a very social, dialectical process between the self (ego) and the other (alter)
Sense of self is based upon:
Suggestions from others
An individual’s sense of self
Two aspects of the seld
Habitual self
Or self of habit
Is ever changing
How?
Based on accommodating self
Accommodating self
Adjusts behaviour by imitating others in response to approval or disapproval alters
New behaviour is “passed on” to the habitual self
As the child moves into the world of school, more “alters” appear, leading to greater complexities in the adoption of attributes that will come to define the self
Contributions
Two themes have reappeared in contemporary theories of the self
The self during its formative years represents a process of change
Multiplicity of self-structure
Attributes of the self may differ across relational contexts as well as within a given relational context
What happens when there is conflict between multiple selves?
Charles Cooley (1902)
The “looking-glass self.”
For Cooley it’s not everyone, its the important people at certain times
Significant others constituted a social mirror
Use other people to give us information about who we are
What’s reflected back to us is what we think other people think we are
We look into this mirror in order to detect others’ opinions toward the self
These opinions are, in turn, incorporated into one’s sense of self
Thus, what becomes of the self is what we imagine others think of us
During formative years, our self-idea is composed of:
The imagination of our appearance to the other person
The imagination of that person’s judgment of that appearance
Some sort of self-feeling, namely, an affective reaction to these reflected appraisals
Namely, pride or shame
But by adulthood, the reflected self becomes stable and somewhat apart from its external origin
Only during childhood
Contributions
Paved the way for:
A more developmental perspective on how the attitudes of others are incorporated into the self
Consequences of the internalization process for adults
Modern analysis of whether self-concepts are malleable or resistant to change
Developmental analysis of how pride and shame may emerge
How emotions emerge
George Mead (1925)
Elaboration of themes identified by Cooley
Greater emphasis on the role of social interaction
Two-stage developmental process through which the child adopts the attitudes of others toward the self
Play
The child..
Observes and imitates the roles of others in adult society in order to…
Gain an understanding of those roles
Build a self
Self as both subject and object
Who we are supposed to be and what we’re supposed to do, as well as how the world works
Games
Proscribed procedures and rules
Rules that govern what people do
Other peoples perspectives exist
Generalized other
The child must now take on the role of everyone else and not just distinct others
Knowing how every participant in the ‘game’ will behave informs one about how one should behave as a participant in the ‘game.’
Through Games, the individual is introduced to the “generalized other.”
An individual comes to adopt the generalized perspective of a group of significant others that shares a particular societal perspective of the self
Judgements of numerous significant others are somehow psychologically weighted in order to produce an overall sense of self-worth.
Other Theorists? Psychoanalytic
Sigmund Freud (1920s)
Proposed a “structural model” of the human psyche
Id
Ego
Superego
Not a theory of model of the self
20th Century: Behaviourism & After
Behaviourism
With the emergence of behaviourism, the investigation of the self was ignored because the behaviourist movement
The self was not an important factor of behaviour according to behaviourists
Emphasized observable constructs
Did not use self-reports
Could not clearly specify the functions of self-constructs
Did not know what the self did
If we do not know the function, it is not worth mention
Second Half
Eventually, self-constructs as predictors of behaviour gained more acceptance
There are limits to behaviourism
Why?
Behaviourism fell out of favour
Behaviourally-oriented therapists
Cognitive revolution
Began in late 1960s-1970s
Self-esteem
20th Century and Beyond
Leary & Tangey
Self as the total person
“Self is synonymous with ‘person.’
Ex. Self-mutilation, self-monitoring
Problems:
A person is a self vs. each person has a self
Self is not the total person
Self as personality
“Self” is all or part of an individual’s personality
A collection of abilities, temperament, goals, values, and preferences that distinguish one individual from another
Ex. Self-actualization, narcissism, self-esteem
Problems:
Phenomenological experience of ther self & identity
Withing psychology this may lead to confusion — are personality psychologists all really self psychologists
What bout the ability to direct attention to oneself
Wrong
Self as the experiencing subject
Self as the I-self
“Self is that which thinks one’s thoughts, feels one’s feelings, ect
Self-awareness theory
Self-perception theory
Problems:
What is the self that people are experiencing?
Self as beliefs about oneself
The me-self— perceptions, thoughts, and feelings about oneself
Ex. Self-image, self-concept
Problems:
Self is not just the set of beliefs that they may hold about themselves
Self is also that which experiences or is aware of one’s perceptions, thoughts, and feelings
Self as the executive agent
“Self as a decision maker and doer that regulates one’s own behaviour
Ex. Self-control, self-regulation
Problems:
What is the ‘self’ that is regulated?
The self is multifaceted, reflects an object of experience, an executive agent and contains personality, traits and preferences
The mental capacity that allows an animal to take itself as the object of its own attention and to think consciously about itself
Reflexive consciousness
The self is necessary for attentional and executive processes
Is the Self Unique to Humans
Self-Knowledge
Parker (1997)
All organisms exhibit self-knowledge
Self-knowledge
Organisms’ knowledge that some aspect of their own being is located in or originated in their bodies
Species-specific ability
To process and map information about their own bodies onto representations of their own bodies
For simple organisms, they have simple self-knowledge
Self-detection (cellular & tissue level)
Self-awareness (visual-kinesthetic matching, mirror self-recognition)
Self-consciousness (self-concept, self-evaluation)
Self-Recognition in Nonhuman Animals
MSR in nonhuman primates first described by Gallup (1970)
Gallup (1970) concluded that MSR implied the presence of self-awareness (“the ability to monitor your own mental states”) and a self-concept
Why MSR in Chimps & Humans
Apprenticeship (Tool Use) hypothesis
For extractive foraging
Requires imitation of others
Need self-awareness to imitate others
Monitor one’s own body movements and internal states
Match one’s own body movements to those of others
How did MSR evolve?
Clambouring hypothesis
An increase in body weight of the common ancestor occurred
Created problems for gap-crossing
Common ancestor developed self-awareness to navigate the airboreal environment
Self as a causal agent
Orangutans, macaques, gorillas, bonobos, and chimpanzees are consistent with the Apprenticeship & clanbouring hypothesis
Macaque monkeys have an earlier common ancestor, which means that it goes further back
Other animals like parrots, European magpies, elephants, and orcas also show the same behaviours, which is difficult for the common ancestor theories
Summary
William James & the symbolic interactionists proposed the most influential historical conceptualizations of the self that differ in terms of the role of social interactions in shaping the self
Although with the rise of behaviourism, the self was largely ignored in mainstream psychology, by the 2nd half of the 20th century, the self once again became a topic of study
While all organisms possess some form of self-knowledge, only humans seem to have the most sophisticated forms of self-knowledge
Lecture 2 ~ January 15th
Development of the Self
Important Criteria
Reliability
Yields consistent information over time and across observers
Ex., tests-retest (temporal stability), inter-rater, internal consistency (e.g. Cronbach’s α)
α= 0.7 and above is good
Validity
Measures what it is supposed to measure
Ex. Content validity, construct validity, criterion validity
Replicability
Ability to reproduce (or duplicate) research studies
Emergence of Self-Agency
In the first 3 years of life, the sense of self-agency emerges gradually through the infant’s interactions with their environment (& other people)
Ex. Action-object
Learning associations
Ex. Mobile conjugate studies
Have an infant laid on their back
jiggling the infant’s foot and see if they turn the mobile
Ex. Symbolic play (beginning ~18 months)
Children themselves perform pretended action
Ex. Holding a cup & pretending to drink
Doll or toy is a passive subject of pretended action
Ex. Holding a cup to the doll & giving it a drink
Doll or toy is an active agent of pretend action
Ex. Pretending that the doll is holding the cup & taking a drink
Emergence of Self-Awareness
Courage, Edison & Howe (2004)
Purpose
To examine the intra-individual differences in the emergence of self-knowledge in toddlers aged 15-23 months using both cross-sectional and microgenetic approaches
MSR (mirror self-recognition)
Photo SR
Verbal SR
Method
Cross sectional
9 groups of 10 infants were tested once
Longitudinal (microgenetic approach)
10 infants were examined at 2-week intervals across the same age range
Tasks
Rouge task
Affective response to the rouge task
Photo self-identification
Toy localization
Does the Rouge task underestimate age of onset because of lack of reflective properties of a mirror
Previous experience with mirrors
Language development
Courage, Edison & Howe (2004)
Few infants in either cross-sectional or longitudinal group passed before 6 months
Cross-sectional group shows abrupt increase between 16-17 months
Longitudinal groups show more variability and gradual change
Unrelated to experience with mirrors
Results
Personal pronoun use
Cross-sectional
M(age) = 20.28 months
Linear increase
More pronouns used by recognizers compared to non-recognizers
Unrelated to successful photo identification
Longitudinal
M(age) = 19.80 months
Linear increase
Photo self-recognition
Cross-sectional
M(age)=21.55 months (none before 17 months)
Sharp increase between 21 and 22 months of age
Longitudinal
M(age)= 18.75 months
Early onset most likely due to practice effects
Gradual mastery
Implications
Developmental sequence of emergence of self-knowledge
Rouge task, personal pronouns, photo identification
MSR is a likely prerequisite to the emergence of other forms of self-knowldge
Typically, pass the Rouge task from about 12-24 months of age (M=18 months)
Emergence of self-awareness is gradual
Is it self-knowledge or some unrelated, non-self cognitive capacity
Emrgence of Self-Continuity
Concept of a self that exists not only in the present but also in the past and on into a future
Self is recognized as both the same and yet different from the ongoing experiencing self
Historical self has the unique capacity to re-experience the past
During the 3 years of life, many memory processes are in place
Need language to be able to fully understand their place in time and space
In their 2nd year children begin to acquire lexical terms that refer to:
Themselves and to others
Time
Ex. Tense forms for the past in contrast to the ongoing present
Ex. Locating self in a temporal space that is distinct from ongoing experience
Within that space, locating the sequence of actions in relation to one another
Children later learn to accomodate own self-reference to the adult language forms
Ex. By age 3, children are able to engage in talk with adults about experiences and events from the past, and contribute organized information about events
Emergence of Self-Coherence: Theory of Mind
Understanding that others have knowledge or belief states that may differ from one’s own and from what is really the case
Others are different from the self
Others are different experiencers
Understanding of the temporal is also crucial for success
Not only understanding of temporal sequence of one’s own beliefs but also of others’ beliefs
Construction of self and others as…
Continuous but also changeable over time
Differentiated from one another not only in ongoing present but also in the past, which may have implications for the present and the future
“Smarties task” Sally-Anne task
The Self-Concept
The Self-concept in Childhood
Emerges around 18-24 months old
2-5 YEARS OF AGE
Competence
Preferences
Physical characteristics
Possessions
The things they have
6-8 YEARS OF AGE
Social comparisons
Social groups
Emotions (or internal states)
Possessions, physical characteristics, preferences, competencies
Why do these changes occur? Cognitive Development
Simple to differentiated
Younger children:
global concepts
Older children:
finer distinctions and allow for circumstances
Inconsistent to consistent
Younger children:
Change their self-description
Older children:
Appreciate stability of self-concept
Concrete to Abstract
Younger children:
External, visible, physical aspects
Older Children:
Internal, invisible, psychological aspects
Absolute to Comparative
Younger children:
Self without reference to others
Older children:
Self in comparison with others
Self-as-public to Self- as-private
Younger children:
Do not distinguish between private feelings and public behaviour
Older Children:
Consider the private self as the “True” Self
Self-Concept in Adolescence
The self-concept includes…
Religious & political beliefs
Personality traits
Attitudes
Childhood features
Generally, the self-concept becomes…
More complex
Ex, sheer variety to different traits
More abstract
Ex. Traits and attitudes vs. Concrete behaviours
More future-oriented
More differentiated
Ex. Take situation and context into account
Ex. Perspective-taking and contradictions
More integrated
Why do these changes occur?
Cognitive development
Better to think about what is possible
Better to think abstractly
More likely to think about the process of thinking
More likely to think multidimensionally
More likely to see things as relative
Psychological Advantages
Allows for construction of possible selves
“Who could I be?”
Ideal self
Ought self
Feared self
Allows for distinction between actual self (Who am I?) and possible selves (Who could I be?)
Self in Adulthood
Self-concept Differentiation SCD
The extent to which persons’ self-representations are different for different social roles and contexts
How we come to know ourselves
Think about ourselves
Use other people
Ex. Social comparison theory, reflected appraisals
Use our social groups
Ex. Social Identity theory
Introspection
The process whereby people look inward and examine their own thoughts, feelings, and motives
Ex. Self-awareness Theory
Proposes that when people focus their attention on themselves, they evaluate and compare their behaviour to their internal standards and values
But how accurate is introspection
Information that is readily available and accessible
Nut some are in non-conscious part of the mind
Reasons might not be what we have access to
Several limits to introspection
Motivational: We don’t just want to know
Ex. Repression, suppression, forgetting
Ex. Self-motives
Non-mitovational: we can never know
Much of self-knowledge is inaccessible to conscious awareness
Organizational Function of the Self
Provides expectations, predictive structure, and guidelines that allows for:
Interpretation of life experiences
Maintenance of a coherent picture of oneself in relation to one’s world
Cement social bonds
Foster appropriate social behaviour and self-regulation
Self-schemas
Cognitive generalizations about the self, derived from past experience, that organize and guide the processing of self-related information contained in the individual’s social experiences
Contain:
Cognitive representations of specific events involving the individual
Ex. Autobiographical memories
Semantic and episodic
Cognitive representations of general characteristics of the individual
Ex. Traits, values, roles, goals, emotions, etx
Not simply a repository for self-related information
Influence what we think, notice, remember, and how we behave
Just like schemas in general, they are resistant to change
HOW DO WE KNOW SELF-SCHEMAS EXIST
In a pilot session, Ps gave self-ratings on measures of the trait independent-dependent
Those who scored at the extremes = those with clear, strong, self-developed, self-schema as independent or dependent
Those who score in the middle = those without clear, well-defined self-schemas, aschematics
Since schemas facilitate processing of schema-consistent information (because schema-consistent information activates the schema), performance should be enhanced under certain conditions
Those with developed self-schema:
More readily processed self-relevant information
Shown independent-/dependent trait adjectives & required to pressa button to indicate whether self-descriptive or not
Content and response latency supported exiistence of self-schemas
More readily retrieved behavioural evidence from thedomain
Asked to provide instances of past schema-consistent/inconsistent behaviour
More easily predicted the likelihood of future behaviour in the domain
More resistant to counter-schematic information about the self
Summary
Social interaction (i.e., symbolic exchanges) & cognitive processes (memory & symbolic
representation) facilitate the development of the aspects of the I-self
The self-concept emerges when we become capable of creating mental self-representations
Both introspection & the social environment can provide information about who we are
One role of the self is to help us organize information & make meaning of our experiences
Self-schemas are one way that the self fulfils this function
Lecture 3 ~ January 22nd
Organizational Function II: Self & Memory
Organizational Function of the Self
Provides expectations, predictive structure, and guidelinesthat allows for:
Interpretation of life experiences
Making meaning of one’s life experiences
Maintenance of a coherent picture of oneself in relation to one’s world
Cement social bonds
Foster appropriate social behaviour and self-regulation
What is Autobiographical Memory
An explicit memory of an event that occurred in a specific time and place in one’s personal past
Explicit and declarative
Episodic and semantic
Long-lasting
Self-relevant
Reconstructive
Involves subjective experience (autonoetic)
Autobiographical memories vary in terms of:
Perspective
Field (1st person) vs. Observer (3rd person) memories
Amount of detail
Specific vs. Generic
Authenticity
Copies vs. Reconstructions
The source
Remembering vs. Knowing
Autobiographical memories serve a number of functions:
Directive
Problem-solving, guidance of thoughts, feelings and actions
Creation of schemas
Social
Establishing an maintainin social bonds
Self-representative
Self continuity (historical self), self-coherence (theory of mind)
Adaptive
Appropriate behaviour
THESE ARE ALL PART OF THE ORGANIZATIONAL FUNCTION OF THE SELF
Development of Autobiographical Memory
Infantile Amnesia
Inability to remember events from one’s early life
Before 2-3 years of age (M(age) =3.5)
First identified by Freud (1924/1953)
Not an all-or-nothing phenomenon
Age of earliest memory depended on event (emotionality and distinctiveness) (Usher & Neisser, 1993; Nelson and Fivush, 2004)
Why does infantile amnesia occur?
Retrieval failures
Ex. Repression, mismatches in context
Storage failures
Ex. Perceptual or neurological immaturity
Both empirically rejected
Account 1: cognitive self is required
There is discontinuity in memory during and after 2 years of life
Many of the storage and retrieval processes are the same
Developmental advances
Many of the organizational properties are the same
Ex. Temporal sequence, context, perceptual similarity
Early in life, information is stored amodally in memory
Language plays an ancillary role
Facilitates the organized expression of memory outputs
Development of the cognitive self
Mental representations of self
Includes representations of one’s attributes, behaviours, thoughts, i.e., me-self
Appears between 18-24 months of age
Serves as a referent around which personal experiences events can be organized in memory
Temporal sequence is important for reliving the past
Adults tend to use cues to sequentially organize events in memory, i.e. locate episodes in one’s life, e.g., epoch markers — “my college years,” “my first marriage.”
Young children do not have this kind of support
Memories retained from pre-school years may be confused, so that the order is difficult to untangle
With acquisition and later mastery of productive language, toddlers begin to recount their autobiographical memory precedes development of language
Account 2: Language is required
Event memory and autobiographical memory are not the same
Autobiographical memory rests on:
Acquisition of sophisticated representational skills that permit the use of the verbal representation of another person to set up a representation in one’s own mental representation system
Autobiographical memory evolves out of conversations between the child and significant others
Child acquires narrative skills that…
Provide an outlet for reporting or personal experiences
Serve structure how these experiences are represented in memory
Autobiographical memory functions to:
Develop a life history
To tell others what one is like, though relating one’s past experiences
Autobiographical memory emerges in late preschool (between 1-5 years of age)
No set age of onset
Emergence in gradual
How does autobiographical Memory Develop
Harley & Reese (1999)
Purpose
To examine the cognitive and social contributors to children’s autobiographical memory during the period of infantile amnesia
Hypothesis
Both children’s self-recognition ability (i.e., cognitive-self) and maternal reminiscing style (i.e., language development) would uniquely predict children’s verbal memory abilities
Method
58 children and their mothers
Maternal reminiscing style
T1 M(age): 19.2 months
Children: productive language, MSR, deferred imitation, verbal memory
Mother: Maternal reminiscing style
T2 M(age): 25.3 months
Children: Verbal memory
Mother: Maternal reminiscing style
T3 (M(age): 32.1 months
Children: Verbal memory
Mother: Maternal reminiscing style
Results
Children of mothers with high-elaborative style provided more memory elaborations and repetitions across time
Children who passed the mirror test provided more memory elaborations across time
Early recognizers provided more memory elaborations
Independent of language and nonverbal memory
Different pathways to verbal memory
Later recognizers may rely more on language
The Self and Memory
What is the relation between the self & memory?
Memories play an important role in many aspects of self
Memories populate, validate and reinforce self-schemas as well as aid in cretion of identity
Empirical evidence from neuroscience
Ex. Medial PFC
Ex. Cingulate cortex (anterior & posterior)
Ex entorhinal cortex, hippocampus, TPJ
Conway & Pleydell-Pearce’s (2000) Model of Self-Memory System
Self-memory System
Conceptual model of the relation between self and memory
Two components
The autobiographical knowledge base
The working self
Autobiographical knowledge base
Involves hierarchy of different levels of specificity
Lifetime periods
General knowledge characteristic of a period of life
Ex. My university years
General events
Can be repeated events, single events or theme-linked series of events
Ex. my first kiss
Event-specific knowledge
Imagery and sensory-perceptual details
Ex…
The working-self
A subset of working memory control processes which functions to constrain cognition and, ultimately, behaviour
A subset of activated self-schemas
Ex. Possible selves
Plays an important role in organizing and executing self-relevant goals
Current working-self goals influence what autobiographical information is accessed and retrieved from the knowledge base
Remember last lecture’s assigned reading
Self-Memory system
Conjunction of the working self with the autobiogrphical knowledge base
Characteristics
Emergent system
Superordinate system
Reciprocal relationship between components
Non-retrieval mode (working self)
Knowledge base is sensitive to cues which result in patterns of activation of information from regions of the knowledge base
Patterns of activation constantly arise and dissipate
“Retrieval Mode” (working self)
Specific pattern of activation
Pattern of activation brought into consciousness and becomes a memory
Incorporated into ongoing processes
Autobiographical memories are dynamic mental constructions generated from an underlying knowledge base
Autobiographical memory is constrained by:
What knowledge can be accessed from knowledge base
Control processes that coordinate access to the knowledge base and modulate output from it
i.e., the working-self
How the self influences memory
Self-knowledge influences what we remember
How events are encoded
Which events are retrieved from memory
What type of inferences are retrospectively drwn
Self-knowledge also influences the subjective experience of autobiographical memory
Assigned reading
Self as abstracted essence of a person’s perception of who they are
When we encounter situations involving personal information, the self is activated and becomes a part of available information by referring to our own self-views
Self-reference
Self acts as a background against which incoming data are interpreted and encoded
Manipulated the type of encoding to see whether the involvement of self gives more richness and fullness to incoming material
Types of encoding
Structural: does it have the same type size (ignore meaning)
Phonemic: does it rhyme
Semantic: Does it mean the same
Self-reference: Does it describe me
Deeper encoding should lead to better recall
Experiment 1:
32 undergrads assigned to 1 of the 4 encoding conditions & rated 40 adjectives
Counterbalancing used in self-reference condition
“Yes” words better recalled in self-reference condition
Why?
Experiment 2
Changed structural and semantic rating tasks
Results replicated experiment 1
How the self influences memory
Libby & Eibach (2002)
Hypothesized that past actions that are descrepant from the present self-concept tend to be recalled from the third-person perspective
Disidentification with past selves represents a mismatch between present standards and remembered behaviour
Remembered behaviour is inconsistent with the present schema
Not just linguistic
Study 2
Third-person perspective when participants in the antireligious condition recall memories of religious activities
Online change in perspective as more memories of religious activities recalled
Nostalgia
Sentimental longing for the past
Several studies have found that nostalgia has positive effects on well-being (ex. Rogers 2020)
Nostalgic memories more likely to be recalled from 1st person perspective
Focus on similarities between present self and positive past selves
False Memories
Sometimes, even false memories are subjectively experienced as true
Ex. Loftus & Pickrell (1995)
Memory accessibility
Phrasing of the question that prompts a memory can influence its accessibility and the inferences about oneself that are drawn
Ex. “List 5 versus 20 friends.”
Summary
Autobiographical memories contain information about what occurred in our personal past
There is a strong, important and reciprocal relationship between the self and memory (content
& subjective experience)
Both cognitive self-development and narrative self-development through social interaction
influence emergence of autobiographical memories
Lecture 4 ~ January 29th
Motivational & Protective Functions of the Self: pt1
Major Functions of the Self
Protective
Maintaining favourable impressions of one’s attributes
Maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain
Motivational
Energize the individual to pursue selected goals
Provide plans and incentives (e.g., future possible selves)
Identify standards that allow one to achieve the ideals in service of self-change (e.g., actual-ideal and actual-ought discrepencies)
Self-esteem
William James
said that self-esteem is the ratio based on the pretension vs. your achievements
Self-esteem as the ratio of one’s successes to one’s pretensions
High self-esteem
Percieved successes>= one’s pretensions or aspirations
Low Self-esteem
Pretensions or aspirations >= successes in important domains
Charles Cooley
Self-esteem is based on reflected appraisals and the accompanying self-feeling
High self-esteem
We believe that others judge us favourably
Associated with feeling proud
Low self-esteem
We believe that others judge us unfavourably
Associated with feeling ashamed
What is self-esteem?
Global self-esteem (trait or baseline self-esteem)
The general way that people feel about themselves
Stable across time and context
2 components
Cognitive
Emotional
Feelings of self-worth (state or barometric self-esteem)
Self-evaluative reactions to valence events
Variable across toem and context
Ex. Feeling proud or pleased or humiliated or ashamed
Self-esteem stability (or variability)
Short-term fluctuations in one’s contextually-based self-esteem
Variable across time and context
Domain-specific self-esteem
The way in which people evaluate their various abilities and attributes
Stable across time
Ex. Academic self-esteem, social self-esteem, physical appearance self-esteem
How can we reconcile these different conceptualizations of self-esteem
Self-esteem has both state and trait qualities
State component
Feelings of self-worth (fluctuations in self-esteem)
Trait component(s)
Global self-esteem
Self-esteem stability
Domain-specific self-esteem
Hierarchical model
Top down
Positively biased if global domain has higher self-esteem
Where global sections matter more
Bottom-up
If we judge ourselves higher on the specific domains, then our global domains will be higher
Contingent self-esteem
Feelings about oneself that result from some standard of excellence or living up to some interpersonal or intrapsychic expectations
Concerned with stranding on specific evaluative dimensions and the views of others
Ex. “How attractive am I?” “Do people think I’m smart?”
Implicit self-esteem
Subjective experience, affective orientation toward the self that is elicited automatically by self-primes and in the absence of conscious control
Nonconscious and automatic
Must be measured indirectly
Ex. Name letter, implicit association test (IAT)
Empirical Evidence: Unrelated to explicit self-esteem
Why?
Validity of implicit measures?
2 distinct self-evaluation systems?
Development of self-esteem
Prior to 6-8 years of age, children:
Evaluate domain-specific aspects of competence
Ex. Physical appearance, physical abilities
Evaluations are overwhelmingly positive
Why?
Lack of cognitive skills to combine these concrete aspects into a more globalized sense of self-worth
Cannot distinguish between actual competence and ideal competence
Have not mastered social perspective-taking skills to infer how others evaluate them
Have not mastered social comparisons to infer how they measure up compared to others
Gain the ability to differentiate between actual competence and standards
The capacity to utilize social comparison for the purpose of self-evaluation
Thus, the self-esteem may begin to decrease
Sources of Self-esteem
Ex. Bierdorn et al. (2018)
Genetic factrs (34%)
Environment
Shared environment (6%)
Nonshared environment (60%)
Ex. Parenting
Depends on age
Why do we have self-esteem?
Basic and fundamental human need
Buffers anxiety
When our mortality becomes salient to us, then existential anxiety rises
If we could buffer that anxiety, our ancestors would be able to survive in perilous situations if the anxiety was lower
We believe that if we add value to ourseves we can rduce anxiety
Ex. Terror management theory
Buffers social rejection
Ex. Sociometer hypothesis
Increases goal striving
Increases resilience
Ex. self-affirmation Theory
Sociometer Hypothesis (Reading #6)
How does the theory explain why we all have self-esteem/the purpose of self-esteem?
From reading #6 know at least 1 study/experiment:
What was the hypothesis?
How did the method test the hypothesis?
What were the results that supported/refuted the hypothesis
What were the limitations of thestudy and how were these limitations addressed?
Study 1
There should be a positive correlation between Ps’ ratings of how they expect others would react & Ps’ ratings of how they would feel about themselves if they performed the behaviour
150 undergrads
Ex. “I lost my temper,” “many others would reject or avoid me,” “I would feel 'good-bad'/“Proud-ashamed.”
Supported, but unreliable & hypothetical
In addition…
There may be costs to pursuing high contingent self-esteem
Ex. Crocker & Knight (2005)
High contingent self-esteem is associated with costs to…
Autonomy
Learning
Relationships
Self-regulation
Mental and physical health
The Self-Enhancement Motive
Self-enhancement Motive
Motivation to enhance the positivity of one’s self-conceptions or protect the self from negative information
People will selectively process self-relevant information in a way that:
Focuses on information that has favourable implications for the self
Avoids information that has unfavourable implications for the self
Key is valence of the task outcome or personality attribute
Has several implications for cognition, emotion and behaviour
Ex. Task preferences, social comparisons, expectations
Self-serving biases: Positive illusions
Unrealistically positive self-evaluations (Taylor & Brown, 1988)
Can also have positive illusions about others and one’s relationships
Operationalization of positive illusions
Positive illusions = self-rating> rating of a “generalized other.”
Ex. “Better-than-average” effect
Problems
Difficult to distinguish between positive and negative self-views that are accurate or biased
Cannot control the characteristics of the generalized other that are brought to mind
How do we solve these problems?
Use and external criterion
Positive illusions = self-rating > an external criterion
What external criteria are typically used?
Self-serving Biases: misremembering
Misremembering
Recalling information in a way that leads to a favourable self-evaluation
Ex. Married couples’ reports of love over time (Sprecher, 1999)
Why?
People ignore regression to the average
self-enhancement
Self-Serving Biases: False consensus
False consensus effect
The tendency to overestimate the extent to which other people share our opinions, attitudes, and undesirable or unsuccessful behaviours
Ex. “Everyone cheats on exams.”
False uniqueness effect
The tendency to underestimate the extent to which other people share our positive attittudes ans desireble or successful behaviours
Ex. Monin & Norton (2003)
How much they engage in water conserving behaviours, and how much do they think other people also engage in these water conserving behaviours
Self-Serving Beliefs
Unrealistic optimism
A phenomenon in which people see themselves as more likely than other people to experience good events, and less likelythan other people to experience bad events
Percieved Control
The tendency to see uncontrollable events as at least partially under our control
Overconfident Judgements
People tend to be overconfident when predicting their own behaviour
Planning fallacy
Students underestimate how long it will take them to complete a task
Self-serving comparisons
Downwald temporal comparisons
Comparing oneself to a past self who performed worse that the present self
Downward social comparisons
Comparing oneself to others who are performing worse than you are
Upward social comparisons
Comparing oneself to others who are performing better than you are
Can be used for self-enhancement needs if…
Emphasize the advantages that the other person had that lead to their better performance
Acknowledge the other person’s superior performance in one domain and derogate their abilities in another domain
Exaggerate the other person’s ability and see them as unusually good
Basking in reflected glory
Associating with successful others to increase one’s feelings of self-worth
Counterfactual Thinking
Mentally changing some aspect of the past as a way of imagining what might have been
Upward simulation
Simulated alternative better than actuality
Ex. “If only I had made that last free-throw, we would have won the game
Downward simulation
Simulated alternatives worse than actuality
Ex. “At least my smoke detector worked, or I might have been killed.”
Important for self-enhancement
Self-serving Attributions
Tendency to attribute one's own successes to dispositional causes and failures to situational causes
Ex.
Why?
Motivational and non-motivational explanations exist
Self-enhancement, self-presentation
Locus of control
Self-Serving Behaviours
Self-handicapping
A strategy in which people create obstacles to success so that potential failure can be blamed on external factors
Summary
Self-esteem reflects evaluations of the self that can have both trait and state characteristics that allow stability across time and context, but also responsivity to (and dependence on) events
Self-esteem emerges out of our cognitive and social development over the course of childhood
Self-esteem may have evolved to facilitate social inclusion, buffer us from existential anxiety, help us achieve or goals and help us bounce back from adversity
The self-enhancement motive is one way in which the motivational and protective functions of the self is served
Lecture 5 ~ February 5th
Motivational & Protective Functions of the Self PT2
Self-Assessment
Self-Verification
Self-Improvement
Self-Presentation
Motivation to make a favourable impression on others
Includes all of the processes by which they control how they are perceived and evaluated by others
One fundamental way in which people:
Negotiate identities for themselves
Maintain smooth social interaction
Achieve social goals
Which Self-motive Will Dominate
Several independent lines of research has shown that when people introspect in a neutral setting:
Self-enhance rather than self-verify
Self-verify rather than self-assess
Does this mean that self-enhancement is the cardinal self-motive?
Not necessarily because we are rarely in a neutral setting
Most studies examine the bare existence of self-motives independently versus relative dominance (comparative tests)
Moderating Factors: Situational
Decision making
Before making an important decision
Ex. “Which graduate school program to apply to”
Self-assessment
After making the decision
Self-enhancement
There to protect you from thinking you made the wrong decision
Feelings of past inadequacy
Ex. Remembering a past failure
Self-enhancement
self-improvement
Experience with or anticipation of a threat
Ex. Expecting to fail in the future
Self-enhancement
Defensive pessimism
Self-verification
Interaction partner
With friend: modesty
Have prior knowledge
Self-enhancement may be costly
Can dispute overly favourable presentations
May have consequences for the relationship
With strangers: Self-enhancement
Lack prior knowledge
Modesty may be costly
Dismissed as mediocre, uninteresting
Cosequences for further opportunities for interaction
How do we know interaction partner matters?
Tice, Butler, Muraven & Stillwell (1995)
Purpose
To examine how self-presentation differs depending on the relationship between interaction partners
Study 1
Ps who answered questions in the presence of a stranger were more favourable about themselves
Study 2
The stranger or friend acted as the interviewer
Results of Study 1 were replicated
Study 3
Ps were requested to present themselves in either a modest ora self-enhancement manner during an interview
More cognitive resources are available for processing and encoding the interview responses when Ps behave in a habitual manner
Results in better memory of the interaction
Self-rating and ratings of the other respondent
Mederating Factors: Informational
Objective information
Ex. Standardized measures of performance, test scores, evaluations of experts
Self-assessment
Based on reality
Personal standards (temporal comparisons)
Possible future selves
Self-improvement
Provide inspiration and motivation
Past-selves
Self-verification
Maintaining or establishing continuity in one’s behaviour or attributes over time to provide a sense of temporal stability in one’s qualities
Self-enhancement
One is doing better than one used to in the past
Social Comparison
Lateral comparisons
Self-assessment
Downward comparisons
Self-enhancement
Basking in reflected glory
Self-enhancement
Upward comparisons
Self-improvement*
Self-enhancement *
Counterfactual thinking
Downward simulation
Self-enhancement
Upward simulation
Self-improvement
Moderating Factors: Life Domain
Domains vary in amount and types of information they make available
Ex. Academic domain
Objective information— test scores
Self-assessment
Social comparison information — classmate performance
Self-enhancement, self-improvement, self-assessment
Personal standards — past and possible future selves
Self-enhancement, self-verifcation, self-improvement
Self-presentation
Moderating Factors: Individual Differences
Individual differences moderate which self-motive is salient, the sources of information used
Ex. Self-esteem
Ex. Self-monitoring
Relative dominance (comparative tests)
Most studies examine the bare existence of self-motives independently versus relative dominance (comparative tests)
Is the self-enhancement motive the dominant self-motive?
Sedikides (2009)
Purpose
To comparatively test the influence of self-motives in self-evaluation
Sedikides (2009)
Self-reflection task
Based on assumption that acquire knowledge by generating hypotheses, then evaluate our hypotheses
Questions varied in terms of
Diagnosticity: how improbable is the behaviour/attitude/intention IF I possess the hypothesized trait?
High diagnosticity
Probable if trait is present; improbable if alternative trait is present
“In my leisure time, do I like to stay at home alone
Low diagnosticity
Probablity unrelated to presence or absence of trait
“In your leisure time, do you like watching movies?”
Response type: Response indicates IF I posess the trait or its alternate
Hypothesis-true:
Answering yes confirms the trait is present
Alternative true
Answering yes denies the trait is present
Can self-reflect on traits that vary in terms of:
Valence
Positive vs. Negative
Centrality
Centrak vs. Periphereal to the self-concept
Interested in:
Selection of questions
High or Low diagnosticity
Confirm (hypothesis-true) or deny (anternative-true)
Trait valence
Trait centrality
Main effect of trait centrality
Self-assessment: should prefer high diagnostic questions for peripheral traits
Why?
Self-verification: Should confirm central traits rather than peripheral traits
Why?
Main effect of trait valence
Self-enhancement: Should confirm and prefer high diagnostic questions for positive traits, but should deny and prefer low diagnostic questions for negative traits
Trait centrality x valence interaction
Self-assessment: no interaction predicted
Self-enhancement: should confirm and prefer high diagnostic questions for central positive traits, but deny and prefer low diagnosticity for negative central traits
Why?
Self-verification: Should prefer equally diagnostic questions for central positive and central negative traits (both lead with equal certainty), but higher diagnosticity for central negative traits compared to peripheral negative traits
Why?
Experiment 1
120 undergrads
Consider 3 personality traits (central v. Peripheral, positive v. Negative)
Select 3 questions that you would most likely ask yourself to determine if you possessed the trait (Diagnosticity & response type)
Diagnisticity: Main effect of trait centrality & centrality x valence interaction
Self-verification
Response-type: main effect of trait valence & centrality x valence interaction
self-enhancement
Experiment 2
120 undergraduate students
Select 6 questions
Results support self-enhancement
Experiment 3
120 undergraduates
Generate own questions
Results support self-enhancement
Experiment 4
120 undergraduate students
Generate own traits AND questions (Test assumption of centrality, “are we more certain of central traits, positivity of trait words, centrality of experimenter-derived words”)
Results support self-enhancement AND self-verification (confirmed central negative traits more than peripheral negative traits)
Experiment 5
240 undergraduate students
Replication of Expt. 1, except asked to be objective (to see if being objective led to self-assessment)
Results support self-enhancement
Experiment 6
240 undergraduate students
Reflect on own traits v. traits of an acquaintance
Self-enhancement only when reflecting on own traits
Another Example of Relative Dominance Evidence: Reading #7
Past studies show preference for positive rather than negative self-relevant feedback
But both self-enhancement AND self-verification predict this preference
Need to account for valence of underlying self-views
Positive self-views
People will work to maintain them
Negative self-views
Self-enhancement: preference for positive feedback
Self-verification: Preference for negative feedback
101 undergrads
PS delivered a speech, ostensibly evaluated by a stranger, and given feedback
Cover story: first impressions based on nonverbal behaviour only
Measured cognitive and affective reactions to feedback
Predicted that:
Cognitive reactions would be based on how much feedback confirmed self-views (self-verification)
Affective reactions would be based on how favourable the feedback (self-enhancement)
Summary
There exist 5 main self-motives that influence what we think, how we feel and what we do
Even though in neutral settings self-enhancement seems to dominate, there are several factors that determine which self-motive is active
Relative dominance studies are required when trying to really determine which motive is active at a given moment.