Page 1: LECTURE 2: THE SELF

• Subject: Social Psychology

Page 2: Lecture Outline

Key Concepts

1. Self-Awareness

2. Schema Theory

Page 3: Short History

Medieval Times

• Lack of interest on the self.

• Defined by:

  • Family Membership

  • Social Rank

  • Birth Order

  • Place of Birth

16th Century Onwards

• Focus on the study of the self due to:

  • Secularization

  • Industrialization

  • Enlightenment

  • Psychoanalysis

Page 4: Early Thinkers

• Sigmund Freud:

  • Concepts: Id, Ego, Superego

  • Focus on Individual Self

• Wilhelm Wundt:

  • Collective Self: Concept of 'We'

• William James:

  • Symbolic Interactionist Self: Concept of 'I' and 'Me'

Page 5: Self-Description Activity

• Describe yourself with close neighbors

• Note down words used

• Look for patterns in descriptions

Page 6: Identity and the Self

• Questions:

  • How many ways did you describe yourself?

  • What are the collective examples?

  • What makes you different?

• Insight by Hogg & Vaughan (2017):

  • "Knowledge of identity regulates human interaction and is influenced by societal structures."

Page 7: Anger Management Reference

• A question about self-description in social context

Page 8: Self-Awareness

Page 9: Key Study: Self Awareness (Scheier & Carver, 1981)

Distinctions

• Private Self: Awareness of internal thoughts and feelings

• Public Self: Image seen by others

Deindividuation

• Reduced self-awareness leading to 'crowd behaviour'

Page 10: Examples of Deindividuation

Page 11: Study Example (Scheier & Carver, 1977)

• Participants read statements while looking in a mirror

• Increased private self-awareness leading to extreme emotional responses

Page 12: Mood Ratings Data

Mean Mood Ratings for Experiment 3

• Positive Statements:

  • No Mirror: 8.1

  • Mirror: 8.9

  • Average: 8.5

• Negative Statements:

  • No Mirror: 6.0

  • Mirror: 4.4

  • Average: 5.2

• Overall Mood Scores:

  • Column Averages:

    • No Mirror: 7.0

    • Mirror: 6.6

Page 13: Development of Self-Awareness

Page 14: Biological Basis of Self-Awareness

• Focus on Anterior Cingulate Gyrus and related neural structures

Page 15: Social Perception and Self-Judgments

• Mitchell, Banaji, & Macrae (2005):

  • Prefrontal cortex activation linked to social perception

  • Similarity in images influences predictions of behavior

Page 16: Lecture Outline Recap

• Self-Awareness

• Schema Theory

Page 17: What is a Schema?

• Defined as a cognitive framework to organize and interpret information

Page 18: Self-schema of Self-concept

• Contains knowledge about self derived from past experiences

• Guides and organizes self-related information

Page 19: Schematic vs. Aschematic Attributes

• Example: James Bond attributes

• Self-schematic attributes:

  • E.g. "Sophistication is important to me."

• Aschematic attributes:

  • E.g. "Being considerate is not important to 007."

Page 20: Markus (1977) Study

• Investigated processing speed of self-related information

• Used independence-related adjectives with female participants

Page 21: Self-Discrepancy Theory (Higgins, 1987)

• Types of self-schema:

  • Actual Self

  • Ideal Self

  • Ought Self

• Goal: Reduce discrepancies between self-schemas through self-regulation

Page 22: Feelings of Dejection and Agitation

• Impact of self-discrepancy on emotional states

Page 23: Self-Awareness Summary

• The self as an area of modern psychological research

• Connection between cognitive tasks and self-awareness

• Some biological underpinnings related to brain areas involved in self-description

• Evidence of self-awareness in animals but differing social behaviors compared to humans

Page 24: Self-Schema Summary

• Self-schemas guide expectations of behavior and emotions

• Our self-concept is complex and multilayered

• Importance of saliency in self-schemas for guiding and reducing uncertainty

• Congruent information is processed quickly; incongruent is often rejected.