Lecture 1 - The Self 1 Flashcards
(lecture):
Define ‘the self’.
(lecture):
The self is an organised set of beliefs we hold about ourselves that define our identity as individuals.
(lecture):
There are two major components of ‘the self’, define these:
- Self-concept
- Self-esteem
(lecture):
Self-concept:
Cognitive component of the self consisting of all the beliefs we hold about ourselves.
Self-esteem:
Evaluate component of the self:
How good or bad we feel about ourselves.
(lecture):
How do we form the self-concept?
(lecture) :
- Can look in the mirror easily, and find out our hair colour etc.
- Can observe our behaviour, what we’re doing. Can find out the circumstances in which that behaviour is taking place. e.g. you think of yourself as being a kind person. How can you be sure? Well, you can observe yourself doing kind things. e.g. voluntary work in a care home. Those actions were freely chosen, nobody made you do them.
The problem with this: anybody else can do this too. We think we know ourselves better than other people do. We’d think our judgement of ourselves to be more accurate than other peoples of us. This is because we know what goes on in our thoughts constantly. (not sure what the problem with this was, the lecturer was unclear).
(lecture):
Wilson, T.D., Laser, P., & Stone, J. (1982). Judging the predictors of one’s own mood: accuracy and the use of shared theories. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 18, 537-556.
(lecture):
Read it, he spoke a lot about it in the lecture.
PROCEDURE:
- Pps asked to keep a diary of how their mood was on each day for several weeks.
- Also asked to record several other factors that might possibly make a difference to their mood. (e.g., the weather, how well they had slept the previous night, the state of their physical health, etc.)
- At the end of that time, the experimenters asked them to rate how much of an effect each of those factors had on their mood over the period of the diary keeping.
- Pps didn’t have to rely on their memories for this, they checked though the diaries to have a look to see the recordings they’d made on the various factors on each day, and they used that to help them record how their mood varied.
RESULTS:
Their judgements were not terribly accurate.
The researchers used the diaries to work out the correlations between mood and each of the variables. So they used that information to get an accurate assessment of how mood was correlated with each variable. That then becomes a basis standard of assessing how accurate the Pps judgments were. If the correlation was 0, that means the Pps judgements have no accuracy whatsoever. If the correlation was +1, that means the Pps judgements had perfect accuracy.
Correlation between objective relations and participants’ judgements:
+0.42
(not completely inaccurate, but still not high. moderate accuracy)
ANOTHER PART TO THE STUDY:
They asked another group of Pps just to make guesses about how peoples mood is affected by each of the variables (weather).
They didn’t see the diaries, and didn’t even know about that part of the study. They are purely making guesses about whether they would affect people in general.
The researchers were then able to compare these guesses with the objective correlation they’d found in the real Pps diaries.
Found:
Guessing participants: common sense beliefs only:
+0.45
Diary participants: individual insight plus common sense beliefs:
+0.42
The people who kept the diaries have no real insight as to how the variables are judging their moods. They were no more accurate than guesses by people who didn’t even know about the diaries.
So the +0.42 correlation was no indication of any accurate insight into peoples own minds and are no better than people who just made it from guesses.
(lecture):
From Wilson et al. (1982) study, we can question, why do we feel like we know more about ourselves when its actually no more accurate? If we know so little about ourselves, how come we think we do? (bit confused, maybe watch back lecture?)
This study answers that:
Nisbett and Wilson hypothesis:
There is conscious access to the products of mental processes but not to the processes themselves.
(look at their study) (cited on the lecture slides)
(lecture):
Nisbett and Wilson said that we don’t actually know much about ourselves, we are using our common sense beliefs:
We know generally that when the sun is shining, people are happier, so when someone asks “why are you happy”, we see the sun is shining then we pull out our common sense belief and say it is because of the sun. We think that we are looking into ourself and analysing ourselves but we really aren’t.
Look at all of their studies for general knowledge. Good to know. (he explains one of them in the lecture (stockings study))
PROCEDURE:
- They went to local shopping centre and set up a stall there.
- Pps didn’t know they were taking part in a study. thought they were taking part in a consumer survey.
- At the stall the researchers set up 4 pairs of stockings labelled A, B, C , D.
- Pps were asked to choose whichever one they thought was the best quality of the 4 stockings.
- Nobody was forced to take part, came up to the stall upon their own free will.
- 52 Pps
- All 4 pairs of stockings were identical.
RESULTS:
- There was a pattern with he choices Pps made.
(see slide 11)
- Pps were picking pairs to the right more often than picking pairs to the left.
-To make sure this wasn’t anything to do with the stockings, the experiments swapped the stockings around every now and then.
MORE PROCEDURE:
- After Pps chose their stocking, the experimenters asked them ‘why did you choose that pair’.
- Pps struggled answering this question.
- Almost all reasons made reference to some part of the quality of the stockings.
- Only 2 Pps didn’t come up with any reasons.
- We know their reasonings can’t be correct because there were no differences between the stockings.
- So this supports that people answer questions about their reasoning by drawing upon general knowledge of what makes one pair of stockings better than another.
MORE PROCEDURE:
- Experimenters asked Pps whether they thought the positioning of the stockings could have influenced their reasoning and all but one Pp said no.
CONCLUSION:
There is a factor: position of stockings in the array has a significant effect on Pps choices, but the Pps themselves have absolutely no awareness of that, and in fact deny that position has an effect.
(lecture):
Define Ownership of our thoughts.
(lecture):
The sense that the thoughts we have are our own.
(lecture):
Define Agency of our thoughts.
(lecture):
The sense that we ourselves make our thoughts happen.
(lecture):
Swiney & Sousa (2013)
When our thoughts aren’t our own
(cited on the lecture slides)
(lecture):
He describes the study in the lecture.
Read the experiment paper.
This is a very interesting paper about how they think they’re not thinking their own thoughts (through a fake EEG helmet)
PROCEDURE:
- Pps were taken to laboratory. They were told there were fMRi scanners there and other equipment to probe peoples thoughts. They were told thats what this study was about and they would be paired with another person.
- They were told the other person would be wearing an EEG helmet.
- Were told this EEG equipment could pick up some thoughts that this other person was having (were told that the other person was to think of certain words)
- Pps were wearing an old skiing helmet (told it was a TMS helmet) which they were told was connected to the other person’s EEG helmet. And that the other persons thoughts will be transmitted into the Pps head.
- They were told they had to say whether they had picked up any thoughts from the EEG person.
- Pps were told they might be in the experimental condition (as describe above) or they might be in a control condition. They were told that in the control condition the equipment was turned off and no thoughts would be coming to them. - this deals with demand characteristics very well. So there is no pressure on them to report that any thoughts are coming to them.
RESULTS:
46 participants:
33 reported experiencing at least one thought of the other person.
8 more thought they might have done so but weren’t sure.
Only 5 reported no thought detection at all.
(reading):
Chapter 3
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