L1 - The Social Self Flashcards
Learning outcomes
- To understand what is meant by the ‘social’ self
- To describe cultural influences on the development of the self (East vs West)
- To know the difference between ‘state’ and ‘trait’ self-esteem.
- To describe what may constitute a psychologically healthy self-esteem
- To give an example of a motive that can underlie self-evaluations.
William James, ‘the social me’ in Principles of Psychology (1980)
- In the ‘Social Self’ chapter in William James Principles of Psychology (1980), he introduced the term ‘the social me’.
- According to William James, ‘the social me’ is the information of what we know about ourselves.
- James belive that this self cannot be differentiated from the social world as the sense of who we are is influenced mainly by our interactions with other people.
- For example, a person in one social context (hanging out with their friends) is not the same person in another social context (spending time with their romantic partner)
- The social self is obtained from social relationships.
As reported by the Anicent Greek, the way to gain information about ourselves is to
- “know thyself”
- This implies that the primary source of self-knowledge is ourselves.
McAdams & McClearn - self-narratives
- They argue that people have self-narratives where they form detailed stories about themselves
- This provides their lives with unity and purpose by constructing those internalised narratives of themself (Dan P.Adams, 2001)
- Argued that these stories are only those that you understand.
Emily Pronin et al (2001) - ‘You Don’t Know Me, But I Know You: The Illusion of Asymmetric Insight’
Hypothesis
They hypothesisted that there is an asymmetry in how you assess yourself vs how you assess your peers/someone else.
The way you think of yourself is different to the way you think about your peers.
Emily Pronin et al (2001) - ‘You Don’t Know Me, But I Know You: The Illusion of Asymmetric Insight
Results
Across these six studies, they found that..
People perceive that their knowledge of their peers is superior to the peer’s knowledge of them.
You understand your friend better than your friend understands you.
In Study 2, they found that college roommates have the belief that their knowledge of themselves is better than what the peers know about themselves.
Emily Pronin et al (2001) - ‘You Don’t Know Me, But I Know You: The Illusion of Asymmetric Insight
Method
- In these several studies, they asked people things to do with typical behaviours and thoughts
- Through survey and questionnaires.
Emily Pronin et al (2001) - ‘You Don’t Know Me, But I Know You: The Illusion of Asymmetric Insight
Conlcusion
- The knowledge of an individual is qualitatively different than their peer’s knowledge of them.
- Therefore, this shows that most people have the belief that they are the best judge of themselves than others.
Epley & Dunning, 2006: The Mixed Blessings of Self-Knowledge in Behavioural Prediction: Enhanced Discrminiation but Exacerbated Bias
Aim
Accuracy of self-knowledge
How can a person gain accurate self-knowledge?
- Are people better at judging their own behaviour or are other people better at judging their behaviour?
- Who is better at judging your behaviour? Yourself or close friends/family?
- This depends…..
Epley & Dunning, 2006: The Mixed Blessings of Self-Knowledge in Behavioural Prediction: Enhanced Discrminiation but Exacerbated Bias
Method
- They did four experiments across different behaviours.
- Basic paradigm: People predict their own behaviour and predict someone else’s behaviour.
- One was on voting tendency
- Asked participants to predict how likely they are going to vote and predict how likely they peers are going to vote.
Epley & Dunning, 2006: The Mixed Blessings of Self-Knowledge in Behavioural Prediction: Enhanced Discrminiation but Exacerbated Bias
When rating your own behaviour… vs rating peers behaviour…
- People tend to overestimate the liklehood of engaging in prosocial acts and desirable behaviours.
- When you rate your own behaviour, you show a positive bias in this rating.
- However, predicting the behaviour of their peers was relatively un biased and these predicitons were more accurate.
Epley & Dunning, 2006: The Mixed Blessings of Self-Knowledge in Behavioural Prediction: Enhanced Discrminiation but Exacerbated Bias
When was your prediction of behaviour accurate?
- When these behaviours are private and not known to people
- To do with personal feelings and emotions.
Epley & Dunning, 2006: The Mixed Blessings of Self-Knowledge in Behavioural Prediction: Enhanced Discrminiation but Exacerbated Bias
Results on voting tendency
- 90% of students themselves predicted that they will vote
- However, only 69% of those students actually vote
- Students were highly accurate in predicting voting behaviour of their welll-known peers as predicted behaviour was 70% and their actual behaviour was 70%.
- When students predicted the voting behaviour of a random peer , they were less accurate as they predicted 75% would actually vote when 69% actually did vote.
Epley & Dunning, 2006: The Mixed Blessings of Self-Knowledge in Behavioural Prediction: Enhanced Discrminiation but Exacerbated Bias
Conclusion overall
- People tend to not be the best judge of themselves when predicting how accurately they would engage in prosocial and desirable behaviour.
- However, they are better at predicting those behaviours of their close peers.
Essay Quesiton regarding the self.
- Introduction: Tell me how you are going to answer the question. What are the arguments you are going to present.
- Paragraph: Point that most people that the best judge of themselves is themself (Reference). However, researchers have found that whether people or peers are best judge of themselves depend on the type of behaviour. Cite Epley and Dunning 2006. Similar studies show this.
- Overall, take away message…..People are not best judge of themselves in everyday behaviours generally…
Who is the accurate source of our self-knowledge?
Book
Ourselves argument + add Emily Pronin
- Most individuals assume that when finding information about someone is to ask the individual itself (Pronin, Kruger, Savitsky & Ross, 2001).
- This is because this individual has access to self-relevant information like their past experiences, intentions, current thoughts and feelings (Eply & Dunning, 2006).
Family and Other Socialisation Agents
Learning what attitudes and behaviours are socially acceptable and normal.
- We learn what attitudes and behaviours are socially appropriate and acceptable from an individual’s parents, siblings, peers and other ‘socialisation agents’.
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Reflected self-apprasials in gaining self-knowledge
Family and Socialisation Agents
Book
- Individuals gain self-knowledge partly through the beleifs of what other’s think about one’s self, this belief is called reflected self-apprasials.
- Reflected self appraisals is also referred to as the ‘looking glass self’ which was coined by Cooley. Other people’s reaction to an individual (whether it may be approving or disproving ) can serve as the mirror of the self (can shape the social self and self knowledge)
- For example, parents may praise your academic achievements at school or make your peers laugh These reactions and appraisals convey you are academic competent and funny.
- Suggests that there is an early development of the self that begins in early childhood and is influenced by how other people react (approving or dispparoving) to us.
Social neuroscienc research
Lieberman (2007) showing that …
There is increased brain activity in the medial prefrontal coretx and in the temporoparitel junction (TPJ) when individuals are thinking about themselves.
Social Neuroscience Research
Pifeifer et al. (2009)
- Adolescents show greater neural activity in TPJ and PFC than adults.
Both Pfier and Lieberman show..
- Supports idea that reflected self apparsial is improvement for development of sense of self.
- Adoselcnes figure out their self (who they are) through their social status and people’s reaction to them. Adoscelens think about themselves more.
- Adults have already established their social status, therefore their self is less affected by people’s reactions to them.
What does birth order have to do with the sense of self?
Frank Sulloway (1996, 2001) - Born to rebel hypothesis (evolutionary approach to sibling conflict)
Book
- Frank Sulloway came with the ‘born to rebel hypothesis’ in which sibling conflict occurs more frequently and are often deadly when resources are limited.
- Humans evolved to have adaptation to resolve this conflict. With the principle of diversification, siblings develop different personality traits, abilities and preferences within the same family to occupy different niches
- Sulloway found that older siblings tend to be more assertive, dominant and achievement oriented whereas younger siblings are open to novel ideas and experience and more aggreable.
- The social self occurs when younger sibling learns to exist with their dominant older siblings (due to their agreeableness)
- Reflected self appraisal due to parents as with second born they are more experienced with dealing with children.
Development of social self-concept
What is self concept?
- How you see yourself.
Development of social self-concept
What is self-esteem?
How do you feel about yourself
Development of social self concept
Self concept is made up a lot of different stuff → global self concept (who you are is made up lots of different things)
- Stephens, Markus and Philips (2013) showed that social class, wealth and neighbourhoods influence how the self is defined by the individual.
