Chapter 4 Flashcards
self concept
- physical
- social
- psychological
- holistic
(what you know about yourself)
self concept - physical
what is on your ID
ex. female, brunette, short
self concept - social
- based on relationships you have with other people
- relationship or group based
ex. mother, Canadian, oilers fan
self concept - psychological
- personality traits, attitudes, psychological states
ex. bored, shy, ambitious
self concept - holistic
- vague and very general
ex. human being, everything I’m meant to be
self concepts start
when you’re young but grow into holistic as you get older, you might not even get there
why is self concept important
- organizational functions
- executive function
- emotional function
organizational functions
- understand ourselves
executive function
plan our behaviour
ex. i hate math, I’m not gonna major in math
emotional function
determine our emotional responses
ex. if you’re shy and your professor calls you out, you’ll have a negative response
cultural differences
- individualistic cultures
- collectivist cultures
individualistic cultures
independent view of self
- prioritize individual needs and personal fulfillment
- favour psychological characteristics
- canada, us, Australia
collectivist cultures
interdependent view of self
- prioritize the well being of a group
- favor social characteristics
- asian and middle eastern cultures
gender differences - men
- more independent view (more psychological characteristics)
- collective interdependence (groups they belong to)
gender differences - women
- more interdependent view (social characteristics)
- relational interdependence (highlighting relationships with other people)
how do we come to know ourselves
- introspection
- observing our won behaviours
- self-schemas
- social interactions
introspection
- thinking about ourselves
- self awareness theory
- makes us self-conscious
- can have negative and positive effects
self awareness theory
who we are right now vs. who we want to/should be
escapist
- negative effects of introspection
- doing something to make yourself stop thinking
ex. alcohol use, binging on food or netflix
observing our own behaviours
- self perception theory
- influence of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation
self perception theory
- learn something about ourselves when we are uncertain
ex. environmentalist? you look back at your behaviours like, recycling or not - learn something about ourselves when we freely choose a behaviour
ex. only throwing something in the recycling because someone told you to
intrinsic motivations
if you’re doing it for yourself
- if you’re good at it
extrinsic motivation
if you’re forced to do something
overjustification effect
occurs when you reward someone that engaged in a behaviour they are interested in but give them an external award - you can make that intrinsic motivation disappear
ex. when a child loves to play piano, parents put him in lessons, you reward your child every time your child practices, you may destroy interest - they are no longer playing because they love it but because they want the reward
- performance related (you mastered it, you get a reward)
- task related (you participated, you get a reward)
self-schemas
- important to the organization function of self
- affects what we notice, interpret and remember
- your self concept as a whole is one big schema but is made up of other smaller schemas
- self reference effect
self-reference effect
- it is easier or us to remember when we can connect it back to ourselves
- when we take a new piece of information and we find a way we can relate to it more
social interactions and self
- looking glass self
- social comparison
looking glass self
symbolic interactionism
- when we are engaged in social interactions with other people we see/learn something about ourselves
the looking glass process
- we imagine how we appear to others
- we imagine what they think of that appearance
- we incorporate that perceived judgement into our self
high looking glass self orientation
what they believe other people think of them plays a huge role in their self perception
- less stability in self concept
(depending on who they are interacting with)
- less clarity in self concept (weak understanding of self)
low looking glass self orientation
what they believe other people think of them plays a small role in their self perception
social comparison
when objective criteria aren’t present for self evaluation, we compare ourself to others (ex. if you’re unsure if you’re good at a subject you look at the class average)
downward comparison
we compare ourselves to people who are worse off (below us) than we are
upward comparison
we compare ourself to people who are better off (above us) than we are
self esteem is affect by
- self concept clarity
- discrepancy between actual and ideal selves (if we have high self esteem we are motivated to change it) something about it
- looking glass self
- social comparasion
self esteem
how you feel about yourself
the looking glass self and self esteem
in your interactions with others, you see yourself as a good fundament person then you are more likely to think that about yourself
performance related - over justification effect
you mastered it, you get a reward
task related - over justification effect
you participated, you get a reward
self enhancement
- do frequency engage
- unrealistically positive view of ourselves
- we tend to see ourselves as better than the average person
- we tend to feel better about ourselves
self verification
- we seek accurate information about ourselves
- ex.how your academic skills are vs. others
- can motivate you to improve yourself
factors that influence self verification vs. self enhancement
- depends on the quality involved (ex. when a quality is not important to you - se, when a quality is -sv)
- depends on who are are interacting with (ex. if they’re important to us, we are more interested in the truth -sv)
- depends on whether we can change (ex. can’t change -se, can change - sv)
