Self

Question 1

What is the Self discrepancy theory ?

Answer 1

It distinguishes between the interpretations of the self
- The Actual self
- The Ideal self
- The Ought self

People strive to bridge the gap between the self and the ought and ideal self

Question 2

What are the 2 components of self esteem put forward by Branden 1969

Answer 2

Branden (1969) said self esteem has 2 components - his theory has a lot of research support

1) to consider oneself effective, to trust in one’s ability to think, learn, choose and make correct decisions, and to overcome challenges and produce changes

2)to respect oneself, the confidence in one’s right to be happy, and the confidence that people are worthy of the respect, love and self-fulfilment appearing in their lives.

Question 3

Outline the study by Kramer and Winter 2008 and the findings from the study ?

Answer 3

Krämer and Winter (2008) examined the relationship between ‘offline’ and ‘online’ personalities. 58 users of StudiVZ.net, a German social networking site used by university students.

Findings: When people are on SNSs they ‘cannot tailor their self-presentations to the specific interaction partner since – in contrast to face-to-face interaction – they are addressing a broad audience’.

Rather than the popular perception that people play with identities or personalities on such sites, their evidence on personality – measured using the RSES scale as well as scales for self-efficacy and extroversion – suggests that people’s personalities offline positively correlate with their personalities online.

Question 4

Outline Steinfeld’s 2008 study looking into Social capital?

Answer 4

-Steinfeld et al., (2008) were interested in whether Facebook could provide ‘bridging social capital’.

They measured the relationship between self-esteem (using the RSES) and bridging social capital for young students, and then measured it again two years later. They divided their sample into high self-esteem and low self-esteem students, then correlated their self-esteem level with the extent of their Facebook use and their bridging social capital.

Found that ‘self-esteem served to moderate the relationship between Facebook usage intensity and bridging social capital: those with lower self-esteem gained more from their use of Facebook in terms of bridging social capital than higher self-esteem participants’

Remember social capital is the connections between individuals who are dissimilar with respect to socioeconomic and other characteristics.