L3 - The Self Flashcards
What is our self-schema?
- Largest, most elaborated schema
- Past experience of ourselves
- Knowledge that is memorised and retrieved
- Predicts & explains behaviours across contexts through identity theory
What is self-schema described as?
- If self-understanding as independent/dependent
- Processed as system 1
- Faster trait relevant judgements
- Relevant behaviour generation
- Engage in knowledge defence
Where does identity formation stem from?
- Erikson identified the difference between biological maturity and societal maturity
- Only have an identity when it is threatened
- System 1 to system 2
- Continuous over a lifetime - always achieving a sense of identity
What are the 8 stages of development for identity formation?
- Each characterised by crisis
- Begins with sense of ego separate from others (e.g primary caregivers)
- Identity vs role confusion - fixes itself either mal/adaptively
- We experiment with different lifestyles
- Resolved by fidelity - have to commit
- Commitment to roles and others
What is identity persistence?
- Diachronic self-unity over time
- We are beings in time who change perpetually and must also remain the same moral responsibility and commitment to the future
What was the identity persistence study?
- Induce a mini-crisis
- Describe self in past, now and if they are the same person
- How do we rationalise?
What is essentialism in identity persistence?
- Something that does not change e.g DNA, spirit, soul etc
- Change is an illusion
- Core vs peripheral: important things do not change
What is narrativity in identity development?
- Self is the centre of narrative gravity
- Internalised and evolving life story
- Reconstructed past = imagined future
- Unity = what are enduring aspects
- Purpose - what is my purpose, we like progress narrative
What are the types of development in identity persistence?
- Episodic accounts: childhood with series of links with past and present with no purpose/progress
- Frankly narrative: adolescence and self-discovery and takes influential forces into account
- Essentialist: revisionist accounts: early adulthood where core essence is provisional
- Narrativist: interpretive accounts in early adulthood where enduring story is revisable through personality
What is identity unity?
- Situationism
- Identifying enduring aspects of self-knowledge in the face of different situations
- Essentialist: aspects of stable self-knowledge to account for situational behaviours
- Narrativist: changing behaviours are predictable
What are the intentions of identity unity?
- Changing behaviours are easy but changing intentions are hard - a pure villain/hero is boring
- Accounts change over time through development
Synchronic self-unity test:
- Create ice breaker comic book edited jekell and hyde
- Used structured interview with students and ask people to describe yourself behaving a good/bad person and then to describe someone you know like a good/bad person
- 3 self-unity categories: with self and others = having fast answer
- 2 interacting dimensions: no.of intentions and being active/reactive
What are the degrees of self unity?
- No self unity
- Multiplicitious Self: many impulses & reactive
- Hierarchical self: many impulses and volitions & reactive and active
- Singular self: one volition & active
What were the results?
- No relation between age and category they chose for other people
- Older they were = more likely to show reactive, multiplicious as they get older ONLY for themselves
How did they adapt the study from the results?
- Coded internal/external attributions for good/bad intentions
- Overwhelmingly take credit for good intentions
- Gradually avoid responsibilities for bad behaviours
What is Seldentity Unity?
- Good behaviour: no relationship between internal/external and self unity category
- Bad behaviour: singular owns it and Multiplicitous disowns it