the self

Question 1

self concept

Answer 1

everything we can claim as ‘me’ or ‘mine’

a knowledge representation that contains knowledge about us - our beliefs about things like our personality traits, physical characteristics, abilities, values, goals

Question 2

distinctiveness theory

Answer 2

our unique, distinctive, characteristics are more salient to us than the characteristics we have in common with others

Question 3

multiple selves

Answer 3

we see ourselves differently in different situations - context influences what spontaneously comes to mind when we describe ourselves

Question 4

dynamic self concept

Answer 4

multiple selves are evidence of the dynamic nature of self concept - representations of the the self change in response to the environment

Question 5

working self concept

Answer 5

the subset of self knowledge that is accessible at any one moment

Question 6

where does the working self concept come from?

Answer 6

the parts of our associative network of the self that have been most recently activated

Question 7

associative networks

Answer 7

metaphorical networks of cognitive concepts that store and organize our knowledge about things - like our self concept

Question 8

spreading activation

Answer 8

when one piece of knowledge is activated, other concepts that are linked with it are also activated - concepts that are strongly linked will be activated more quickly

Question 9

what is accessibility of self knowledge a function of?

Answer 9

frequency of activation and recency of activation

Question 10

working self concept and core self

Answer 10

working self concept depends on recency of activation and core self depends on frequency of activation

Question 11

evidence for situational activation - questionnaire study

Answer 11

one of these tricky studies that pretend to be what they’re not -
used a fake questionnaire to manipulate whether people saw themselves as introverted or extroverted - found that simple priming was enough to influence how ps described themselves and how they behaved with a confederate

Question 12

evidence for situational activation - scrambled sentence

Answer 12

ps were primed with being rude or polite through a scrambled sentence task - then told to wait while the experimenter finished up with another p (confederate) - measured amount of time it took for p to interrupt them - ps in rude condition were 3 minutes faster to interrupt than the polite condition and 65% of rude ps interrupted compared to 15% of polite ps

Question 13

self schemata

Answer 13

aspects of the self that are more central that then guide how we process new information about the self

Question 14

schematic traits

Answer 14

traits that a person is extreme on/are very important to them

Question 15

aschematic traits

Answer 15

traits that don’t apply to a person - they don’t feel strongly either way about them

Question 16

self schemata testing

Answer 16

had ps identify which traits described them and which were important to them - then categorized ps as schematic or aschematic for certain traits
- a few weeks later ps did a me/not me task where they responded to traits presented to them - was found that ps had faster reaction times for schematic traits, meaning these traits were more accessible for them

Question 17

what explains consistency in self descriptions and behaviour across situations

Answer 17

self schemata

Question 18

where does our self concept come from?

Answer 18

• self perception
• looking glass self
• social comparison
• social identity

Question 19

self perception theory

Answer 19

we come to learn about ourselves through observing our own behaviour

Question 20

looking glass self

Answer 20

how we see ourselves comes from how others see us, or, more often than not, how we think others see us

Question 21

social comparison

Answer 21

we compare ourselves with others to form conclusions about our relative standing on attributes, abilities, opinions, etc

Question 22

social identity theory

Answer 22

the social groups we belong to play an important role in how we see ourselves