Identity Theory Flashcards
Describe self-schemas
- Affects how we process social info about ourselves ]
- When info is relevant to our self-concept we process it quickly and remember it more
- Our self is the centre of our social world
- Everything we see/hear depends how we see ourselves, how much we think something matters to us, how important something is to us; if we are interested we are more likely to pay attention
- Self concept = who we are, who we want to be, who we fear becoming; influences who we want to be and therefore how we act
What influences who we become/how we see ourselves
- The roles we play
- Social identities we form
- Our successes and failures
- Others’ judgements of us
- Comparisons with others
- The culture we are in
- Seeing self linked to social groups affects self-concept esp if person strongly identifies with that group
What are the 5 ways we learn about ourselves
- The roles we play
- Introspection
- Self-comparison
- The roles of others’ judgements
- Social comparison
How do we learn about ourselves: the roles we play
- Inhabiting a role increases our identification with it
- New roles gradually become more familiar and a part of our self-concept
Erving Goffman (1959)
- Believed we inhibit social roles and they are like performances
- Performances are us acting out schemas
- As get used to the idea we begin acting more naturally
- E.g. a new student doesn’t know how to act as the role us new so perform according to the schemas, as they get used to the new role they begin acting more naturally
How do we learn about ourselves: introspection
- Introspection known for not being accurate but there are benefits to it; only we know what we truly thinking feel
Self-reflection: predicting our behaviour and feelings
- We think we will act in a more prosocial manner in the future than we really do
- We imagine being more distressed by traumatic events than we actually will be
Self-reflection theory (Bem, 1972)
- When internal states are ambiguous and we are not constrained, we may infer states by observing our behaviour
- According to theory, introspection is a poor guide to a person’s internal states as internal cues are weak an ambiguous
- We are bad at giving explanations for our own behaviour
- Self-perception is poor, we make excuses for our behaviour, often we are just kidding ourselves
Swann and Ely (1984)
- People who were subtly induced to describe themselves as either introverted or extraverted later defined themselves as such, but only when previously unsure of which they were
How do we learn about ourselves: self-comparison
Self-Discrepancy theory, 1987 Three types of self 1. Actual self - how we currently are 2. Ideal self - how we would like to be 3. Ought self - how we think we should be
- When ought/ideal self don’t match the actual self it can motivate us to change our behaviour in order to minimise the differences
- Failing to change and minimise these differences leads us to become emotionally vulnerable
- When ought self doesn’t match actual self we become dejected, disappointed, unsatisfied with life, unhappy, low mood
- When ideal self doesn’t match actual self we feel agitated, high anxiety, worry, concerned
How do we learn about ourselves: the roles of others’ judgements
- We incorporate the labels given to us into our self-concept e.g. clever, kind, outgoing
- Doesn’t matter what people actually think of us, only what we perceive they think of us
- Can have negative effects e.g. if we believe people don’t like us we will believe we are unlikeable even if it is untrue
Looking Glass Self (Felson, 1989)
- Other people’s reactions affect who we are
- We imagine how others see us and how they are judging us accordingly
- We do not know really how others feel so we have to make interpretations based on their actions and behaviours
How do we learn about ourselves: social comparisons
- Compare ourselves to others e.g. role model, stranger friends, family
- Helps us understand more about ourselves and how much we are succeeding/failing
Social companion theory (Festinger, 1954)
- Rather than objectively measuring our qualities, instead we compare them whoever is around us
Leary and Baumesiter (2000)
- Upward comparison = comparing self to those above us, helps motivate us to do better
- Downward comparison = comparing to self to those below us, makes us feel better about ourself
Describe the two-part model of self-awareness
- Created by Sheier and Carter
Private self:
- Own private thoughts, attitudes, feelings
- Leads you to try and match your behaviour to your internalised standards
Public self:
- Public image, how others see you
- Aims to present yourself in positive light to others
Describe regulatory focus theory
- Higgins (1997) suggested people have two separate self-regulatory and each are concerned with two different goals
- Promotion system:
- Concerned with keeping up hopes an aspirations
- Generates sensitivity to the presence/absence of positive events
- People with in a approached focus adopt approach strategies to reach goals - Prevention system:
- Concerned with fulfilling duties and obligations
- Generates sensitivity to presence/absence of negative events
- People in prevention focus use avoidance strategies to reach goals
- Whether a person is promotion and prevention based is determined during childhood
- Promotion-focused occurs wen a child is hugged/kissed for behaving desired manner and love is withdraw as a form of discipline
- Prevention-focused occurs when a child is encouraged to be alert of potential dangers and shouted at as a form of punishment
