Lecture 3 - Social - The Self

Question 1

Define and describe the following key terms:

1. Personal versus collective versus relational self
2. Self-schemata
3. Self-recognition and the looking glass self
4. Self-perception theory
5. Social comparison theory
6. Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation

Answer 1

Personal versus collective versus relational self: Brewer and Gardiner (1996)
Personal self – personal traits that separate self from others.

Collective (or social) self (selves?)– Group memberships. Inevitably defined by a wider social context.

A relational self – comes from a person’s relationships with others. Exists within an interconnected network of duties, responsibilities and expectations

Self-schemata - reflect how we expect ourselves to think, feel, and behave in a particular situation

Self-recognition and the looking glass self - Self-recognition

Historically, many theories assumed that people assume the role of the other in order to gain an understanding of themselves.
The “looking glass self” - our concept of self comes from seeing ourselves as others see us.

But, this doesn’t seem right…
People see themselves as how they think others see them (Shrauger & Schoeneman, 1979)

Self-perception theory - (Bem, 1972) - Suggests we know who we are by observing our own behaviour particularly when our internal cues might be weak.
We infer our own attitudes from our own behaviour
EXPERIMENT!!
Two groups – A and B – matched for self-esteem
Group A – induced to describe themselves in flattering ways
Group B – induced to describe themselves more modestly
Self-esteem measured again.
PREDICT THE OUTCOME!
(see Jones et al., 1981; Rhodewalt & Agustsdottir, 1986)

Social comparison theory - Festinger (1964) - People evaluate their own abilities & opinions by comparing themselves to others (when objective information isn’t readily available)
‘Downward’ comparison leads to an evaluatively positive self concept (Wills, 1981), and vice versa. E.g. Klein (1997) – college students – better to get 45% when the class average was 40%
Or 60% when the class average was 65%?

You have just received your first exam result.
Would you rather have got:
60% when the class average was 65%?
45% when the class average was 40%?
(see Klein, 1997)

Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation

Question 2

A meta-analysis of Facebook–depression relations: Yoon et al.(2019)

Answer 2

• Significant correlations between SNS-usage variables (i.e., time spent on social networking sites (SNS) and SNS checking frequency) and depression were found.
• Significant correlations were found between social comparisons made on SNS (i.e., general and upward comparisons) and depression was found.
• Social comparisons on SNS were more strongly related to depression than was time spent on SNS.

Question 3

2. Provide real-life and research-based examples to illustrate social psychological accounts of the self.

Answer 3

De Vries and Kuhne (2015):
Negative social comparison: The degree to which people experienced thinking that others are better off when viewing others’ updates on Facebook.

• Facebook use was related to more negative social comparison.
• More negative social comparison was related to more negative self-perception.
• Facebook use was indirectly related to more negative self-perception (e.g., social competence, physical appearance).
• Happiness moderated the relationship between Facebook use and social comparison.
• Facebook use was more strongly related to negative outcomes for unhappier people.

Lepper et al (1973):

Showed three different groups of children a game.
Groups then experienced different conditions:

Was not told anything, and received no reward.
Was told they’d be rewarded for choosing to play the game again later.
Was not told anything, but received an unexpected reward if they did choose to play the game again later.

Barry Manilow T-Shirt - Spotlight Effect (4 mins; video)/
Think about how ‘Spotlight Effect’ are related to ‘Egocentric bias and Self-serving bias’. People tend to believe that the social spotlight shines more brightly on them than it really does. : Gilovich, Medvec, & Savitsky (2000)