Psych Exam #1// Lecture #3 Chp3 (Self-Knowledge & esteem) Flashcards
Self-concept
- 3 basic levels
* individual, relational, collective
- individual:
traits, physical attributes, attitudes
relational
roles in close relationships
collective
- social identities, membership in groups
Extended self
includes “everything a man can call his own” –e.g. house, family, etc.
How do you know things are part of the self?
The emotional feeling of connection
“Self tag” exists as part of the brain’s association network – vision connects to ‘feeling of mine’ –
Capgras Syndrome
when think everything that is “mine” has been replaced, because lost the connection between self tag feelings and visual cortex
Self Schemas
–How you see yourself across time, the stable self across time- usually traits in U.S., differs across individuals
- • Most important self-descriptors
* Most accessible, listed first
* Much knowledge, well-articulated
* **Guide attention; self as a lens through which the social world is viewed
Working self
How you see yourself right now, result of one’s social situation
distinctiveness postulate
we will define ourselves in ways that make us unique
Self-complexity
how many distinct self-concepts you have in different situations.
self-concept clarity
which is understanding how the parts of you fit together
strongly associated with emotional wellbeing, self-esteem, and strong relationships.
Where does self-knowledge come from?
- Introspection (thinking about what you are like)
- Others views of you (thought to be most powerful shaper of self knowledge –especially for development of self-knowledge in children AND for self-evaluation, even in adults)
- Looking glass self: We view ourselves though others eyes, and thus judge ourselves based largely on how we believe others would judge us
You can be high in both complexity and clarity, but it takes lots of thinking about how all of your self-aspects make sense together.
Requires self-understanding and knowledge.
- Self-Esteem:
Self-evaluation, accessible attitudes about the self. Do you like yourself?
Where does self esteem come from?
(1) Feedback from others –are we liked?
(2) Social comparison to assess our talents
(3) Social reflection of others outcomes
- Williams’ the KKK won’t let me play
- Participants left out of a ball toss game (Cyberball) they thought was with others they liked or disliked. SE takes a hit automatically and immediately after rejection, but controlled processes mean recover differently after time for conscious processing
Cyberbomb
–pits financial rationality (conscious, controlled) against belonging (automatic), and still reduces self-esteem immediately
Self-evaluation Maintenance
how do close others influence our esteem (comparison vs reflection).
* determined by self-relevance of domain and closeness of other, if relevant we compare and want to be better than close other, if irrelevant we reflect and want close other to do well.
The Password Game Study
who do we help?
SEM
How do we maintain self-esteem?
Positive illusions
Positive illusions
Memory biases, Judgment biases, Self-serving attributions, Unrealistic optimism, Illusions of control
Memory biases
we recall good things about self with one exception - we remember past self as worse off
Judgment biases
everyone is ‘above average’ we overestimate the uniqueness of our pos qualities and think our neg qualities are common
Self-serving attributions
success is stable, failure is unstable
Unrealistic optimism
The future is brighter for us than others
Illusions of control
- We overestimate our control over events. The lottery study.
