Early years-

Social psychology is the scientific attempt to explain now the thoughts, feelings and behaviours of individuals are influenced by the lethal, implied or imagined of other human-beings

Triplett - key study Pull a flag round a drum by a chord, Either alone or in pairs, Children were either faster, slower or not impacted by being in a pair, Faster children were due to competitive instincts so they moved quicker

Social facilitation → the tendency for the presence of others to improve a person's performance on a task

Co-action effect → increased task performances comes about by the presence of others doing the same task

Audience effects →social facilitation also impacted by the presence of a passive spectator / audience

Self reports Participants report their own thoughts, feelings and behavioural instincts Large amounts of data Ensure anonymity

Correlations Do not mean causation Large amounts of data

Non-experimental methods Experiments are not always possible, practical or ethical Archival research → researcher assembles data from a range of sources Case study → single group, use a range of methods Field study → no manipulation of variables

19th century Wundt made 1st lab Freud did psychoanalysis Allport made social psych an experimental science Murphy and Murphy published experimental social psychology

Self and identity

Scholars believe cause we can think about ourselves that's what makes us different from animals

Reflex thought → we can think about ourselves, who weare and who've would like to be

Historical context Relatively new idea People used to be defined by social status

Changed by Secularisation → idea that fulfilment occurs in the afterlife was replaced with idea that you should search for it in this life Industrialisation → people moved place to place so they got a portable personal identity so there was less social structure Enlightenment → people thought they could have a better life so threw out oppressive regimes Psychoanalysis → Freud gave idea of unconscious 1990s - over 31,000 articles about self

Searching for the self Self assessment → seeking out new information about ourselves in order to find out what sort of person we are

Self verification → seeking out information that confirms what we think we already know about ourselves

Self-enhancement → the motivation to promote a favourable image of self

Sedikides found enhancement was found to be stronger than verification which was stronger than assessment

Self-schemas Cognitive store of information about ourselves Complex so stored in different nodes that are activated by specific cues People have a clear concept of them selves on some levels, but not others

Psychodynamic self Freud believed that the id is controlled by the ego due to internalised social norms of the superego Sometimes the impulses cannot be repressed Only find out whoa person truly is through hypnosis or psychotherapy

Individual vs collective self Freud viewed the self as very personal and private Self can also be shared _ eg "I live in England" many people live there but it is still part of who you are Many debates over collective or individual over the years Mostly individual cause when we come together we are interacting as a group rather than a having collective sense of shared identity

Collective self Wundt originally thought self was collective Early psychologists believed in collectivism Found there was a group life that was different from any of the individuals in the group

Symbolic interactions self Self emerges and is shaped by social interactions

William James distinguished between self as a stream of consciousness and as an object of perception Reflexive knowledge is possible because "I' can be aware of "me" and people can therefore know themselves Doesn't mean it's accurate as people reconstruct who they are without being aware Sense of self arises out of human interactions

G.H. Mead believed that human interaction was mostly symbolic and that self- conception arises and is continuously modified through interactions between people

Human interaction is words and non- verbal cues that symbolise much more than is visually available

Interactions must involve symbols that nave a shared meaning if they are to be effectively communicated

Effective interaction also depends on being able to take on the role of anothers we can construct a self-concept that reflects the society we live in Generates straight forward predictions Looking glass self studies

Self awareness The state in which you are aware of yourself as an object Try to align yourself with your ideal In experiments put people infront of a mirror

Scheier and Carver made 2 types of self The private self → your private thoughts and feelings The public self → how others see you, your public image Private you try and align yourself to your standards, public you try and present yourself in a positive light

Being self-aware can cause you to be self- conscious Self awareness can intensify emotions, improves introspection and improves performance

Opposite is deindividualisation where people block their awareness _ can be seen in social unrest

Silvia and Phillips suggested more self attention not awareness

Steele (1975) Women received 2 phone calls- see if they would help the community 1st call either told community was helpful or unhelpful (challenge your identity) More likely to help if told unhelpful as want to prove them wrong

Van Gyn et al. (1990) Participants in 1 of 4 conditions Power training or not and with or without imagery Found power training improved performance Imagery also improved performance Imagery improves self-conception which improved performance

Medica et al (1995) Satisfaction of Olympic medalists Gold happy cause won Bronze happy cause got medal Silver not happy as compared to gold Upward or downward comparisons

Meta perspectives Shrauger and schoeneman reviewed 62 studies People did not tend to see themselves as others saw them Instead people saw themselves as now they thought others saw them

Self-discrepency theory Higgins (1987) → discrepancies, bigger the gap between ideal and ought can lead to dejection or agitation

Actual self → how you feel, currently are Ideal self → how you should be Ought self→ how we think we should be The bigger the gap the more problems you have - can lead to depression or anxiety

Self-regulation → strategies that we use to match our behaviour to an ideal or ought standard

Regulatory focus theory Higgins 2 separate self-reglatory systems _ promotion and prevention Promotion → attainment of one's hopes and dreams, adopt ‘approach strategic means’ to get their goal Prevention → fulfilment of one's duties and obligations, use ‘avoidance strategic means’, concentrate more on avoiding failure than reaching the top

Based on individual differences that can arise in childhood ↳ promotion _ love for doing well, withdrawal for bad prevention _ encouraged to be alert for danger, shouted at when bad

Inferences from our behaviour Examine our own private thoughts

Self-perception theory (Daryl Ben) → make attributions for our behaviour and others, are able to make internal attributions for our behaviour

Imagery affects self-concept ( Caroline van Gyn)

Overjustification effect → when there aren't pressures on our performance, we do better cause we think we are doing it cause we enjoy it

Social comparison theory (festinger) ↳ How people learn about themselves by comparing to others People seek out people who are similar to them to validate their opinions

We compare ourselves to those we perceive as worse than us, to make us feel better (wills)

Self- evaluation maintenance model Try to minimise our similarities with a person Eg. Medvec - medal study → bronze were happier than silver cause they got a medal but silver compared themselves to gold so felt bad

Downward comparisons between groups they see as inferior - enhances self-evaluation and self-esteem

Many selves and multiple identities Some have more complex and diverse self Social identity → self in terms of group memberships Personal identity → self in terms of personal traits and relationships

Brewer and Gardner distinguished 3 forms of self: _ individual _ personal traits

• relational _ connections and role relationships with significant others
• collective - group memberships   Recently thought to be 4 types
• person-based - internalisation of group properties by group members   _ relational - self inrelation to other people in a group context   -group-based - social identity
• collective - not only self-defining attributes in a group but also doing things to create a group image   Contextual factors influence the self that is present - self could be entirely situation- dependent

Social identity theory Group memberships and intergroup relationships that influence self

Prototype - representation of typical ideal defining features of a category

Self knowledge People like to search for self-knowledge Eg. Personality tests, astrology and palmistry Self-assessment → find out new info about ourselves Self-verification → find out info that confirms what we already know about ourselves Self-enhancement → motivation to develop and promote a favourable image of self Sedikides found that enhancement was main reason for self-knowledge

Self esteem _ why people pursue it Fear of death → terror management theory _ most powerful motivating factor in human existence, through high self- esteem people can escape the anxiety, high self-esteem make people feel immortal, is unfalsifiable as it tries to explain all of human behaviour in terms of a single motive

Sociometer → it's a reliable index of social acceptance and belonging, correlated with lower anxiety

Self-conceptual positivity bias Psychologically adaptive to prevent negative mental illnesses Not usually that big to be a threat to self-conceptual accuracy

Cultural differences Western cultures are individualists- have an independent self, autonomous and separate from others Other cultures are collectivists - have an interdependent self that's grounded in ones connection to others

Often based on economic activity → west have a system based on labour mobility, independence and uniqueness become more important than connectives

Individual differences Believed that low self- esteem leads to personal and social problems - little evidence Critics argue that low self - esteem is due to stressful and alienating conditions Self-esteem varies between moderate and high not low and high

Narcissistic → have high self esteem but feel superior to others, most likely to have interpersonal problems, more prone to aggression especially when they feel their ego has been threatened

Strategic self-presentation Jones and Pittman made 5 motives

• self-promotion → trying to persuade others that you're competent
• ingratiation → trying to get others to like you
• intimidation → trying to get others to think you're dangerous
• exemplification → trying toget others to view you as a morally respectable individual
• supplication → trying to get others to take pity on you cause you're needy   Trying to get people to like you and think you’re competent (warmth and competence)

Expressive self-presentation A deliberate effort to act in a way that creates a particular a impression A particular identity is worthless if it's not validated by others Prefer partners who agree with their self-image

Michelangelo phenomenon → where expectations create reality and have positive outcomes