The Self

Question 1

What is the Self?

Answer 1

Many different parts make up the self. The self is social, we have a social relationship with the self, and it’s important to understand the self to learn about our social relationships with others.
Guided by societal norms

Question 2

What is the purpose of the self?

Answer 2

For social acceptance. Keep on track with yourself (goals.) Playing social roles, society creates and defines these roles, individuals seek and adopt them

Question 3

What is the biological basis of self awareness?

Answer 3

Anterior cingulate cortex responsible for controlling and monitoring intentional behaviour. This area becomes activated when we are self aware

Question 4

What is the self awareness theory?

Answer 4

By Duval and Wicklund 1972, looking in the mirror can lead to self awareness. self aware people feel bad because they notice discrepancies between who they are and the standards. ‘‘shape up’’ means to match the behaviour to the standard or ‘‘ship out’’ means to escape the self awareness state.

Question 5

Why do we have multiple schemas?

Answer 5

Focus more on the positive schemas that make us feel good, rather than the schemas that make us feel bad.
Which is why we need multiple schemas, so we can focus on these when we feel bad.
We have schemas of our desired and future selves

Question 6

How does self awareness impact behaviour?

Answer 6

When self awareness feels bad, we seek to escape. By drinking alcohol, we remove inhibitions Greenberg and Mushman 1981

Question 7

What is the purpose of self awareness?

Answer 7

Self regulation
Self control e.g. what would others think?
Manage behaviour in pursuit of the goal, also functions as personal achievement (am I still on track?)
Adopt the perspectives of others

Question 8

What are the limitations of animals having a sense of self?

Answer 8

Does failing the mirror test really shows that an animal lacks self awareness, or does passing the mirror test really indicate a fully developed sense of self awareness?
Is self awareness possible without language?

Question 9

What is symbolic interactionism?

Answer 9

Mead 1943
We evaluate ourselves to embody the societal norms

Question 10

What did Prior et al 2008 find?

Answer 10

Mirror test, dot placed on crow’s beak, the crow recognised the difference and tried to get it off

Question 11

What are self concepts?

Answer 11

Made up of schemas
Set of beliefs people have about themselves who help them understand who they are

Question 12

What does the study by Markus 1977 show?

Answer 12

Participants who were self-schematic on independence or dependence more quickly identified words associated with their schemas (e.g., “assertive” vs. “cautious”)
More able to recall experiences that demonstrated their schema

Question 13

How can self schema’s influence everyday life?

Answer 13

Can become all consuming
People have schemas about the desired and undesired selves
Having multiple schema’s can combat this

Question 14

What is the multiple role theory?

Answer 14

Benefits people’s health to have multiple self schema’s, it can open up new experiences but you risk failure and frustrations
Priming
Quality (happiness) over quantity of schemas, where our schemas align

Question 15

Why is the self concept clarity important?

Answer 15

Important to have a strong, unified sense of self
Bolsters psychological well-being and self-esteem
Helps us deal with stresses and injustices

Question 16

What is the self concept clarity?

Answer 16

The extent to which self-schemas are clearly and confidently defined, consistent with each other and stable across time

Question 17

What is the diary study?

Answer 17

One way to measure self-concept clarity
A research method that requires participants to keep track of their daily activities or events for a particular period of time
Nezlek and Plesko (2001) had over 100 participants complete the self-concept clarity scale developed by Campbell et al. (1996) twice a week for up to 10 weeks
Some days self-concept clearer than others
Less clear due to negative or stressful events
More stressful events = self esteem will suffer therefore the self concept clarity will go down

Question 18

What are the limitations to the diary study?

Answer 18

Might not be truthful
Correlation vs causality
Not an experimental study

Question 19

What are the limits of self awareness?

Answer 19

People appear not to notice why their attitudes change,
People don’t appear to understand how situational factors affect their behaviour,
People don’t appear to understand why they like things and believe their behaviour is influenced by things that don’t influence it

Question 20

How accurate is our self awareness?

Answer 20

Inaccurate self judgements,
People may be wrong about the extent to which we have free will, People have a vested interest in their self concepts and affective forecasting error (people overestimate the emotional impact that positive and negative life events have on them)

Question 21

What is the self perception theory?

Answer 21

People learn by examining their own behaviours
These effects can occur just by imagining these behaviours

Question 22

What is the self discrepancy theory?

Answer 22

Focus on people’s awareness of discrepancies between the actual self and their ought selves
Psychological discomfort from discrepancies
Actual: current self
Ought: who they ought to be
Ideal: who they would like to be
Self-regulation: attempt to match behaviour with an ideal/ought standard of the self

Question 23

What is the regulatory focus theory?

Answer 23

Builds on self-discrepancy theory
People (and animals) have two distinct regulatory systems
Promotion (approach orientated in constructing the self)
Prevention (cautious and avoidant in doing so)
Individual differences, mood and context can affect which system people take
Confronted with loss = prevention
Confronted with win = promotion
Promotion approach increases creativity

Question 24

What is the control theory of self regulation?

Answer 24

People test the self against public and private standards and change behaviour if there is a discrepancy.
Cognitive feedback loop: TEST the self schema- do I meet this standard? - if no, then OPERATE to address the discrepancy.
Allows people to make improvements to the self through self-appraisal and self-regulation
But exerting self control can hamper performance on other tasks
Ego depletion: self control is weakened after an initial task that requires self control
Strength model of self control: self control is a limited resource, which is depleted through use

Question 25

What is the social comparison theory?

Answer 25

To learn about and define the self, people compare themselves with others
Upward social comparison: can have negative effect on self-esteem
Downward social comparison: positive effects on self-concept
Temporal comparisons: comparing oneself with a self from the past or with an anticipated future self

Question 26

How do temporal comparisons enable people to boost their self esteem?

Answer 26

Denigrating past selves
Value of the past self is expendable in the pursuit to esteem the present self
‘The ever improving self’

Question 27

What is the self evaluation maintenance model?

Answer 27

People are able to maintain their self-esteem when making upward comparisons
Exaggerate the ability of the ‘better’ person (e.g., Sally is just a genius anyways)
Engage in downward social comparison with another
Avoid the comparison person
Devalue the dimension on which the other person is better (e.g., chess is meaningless anyways)

But people do not always adopt these strategies; sometimes people derive self-esteem from the achievements of close others – social reflection
If the domain of achievement is not self-relevant OR
If we too are exceptional in this domain
“Basking”

Question 28

What is the self esteem?

Answer 28

A person’s subjective appraisal of the self as negative or positive
Influenced by parenting styles
Chronic individual differences- genetics
Changes throughout life span

Question 29

What are the sources of self esteem?

Answer 29

internally (dependent on emotions, self schema’s and how flexibly they evaluate themselves)
externally (social acceptance)

Question 30

What is the sociometer theory?

Answer 30

Self esteem is an internal ‘thermometer’ of social inclusion
Signs of exclusion= lower self esteem and negative emotions
People change their behaviour to be included

Question 31

What is contingent self esteem?

Answer 31

People can base their self-esteem on outside factors (you are what you do; you internalized what is expected of you)
If self-esteem is based on a larger range of factors, people are more likely to have high self-esteem
If based on a narrow set of factors (e.g. appearance, attractiveness), this can lead to lower self-esteem

Question 32

What are the consequences of self esteem?

Answer 32

Mood regulation
Protection from the terror of death
Terror management theory and mortality salience
People who have high self-esteem are less affected by mortality salience manipulations

Aggression: people with lower self-esteem are more prone to antisocial acts
However, vast amount of research suggest that high self-esteem is associated with aggression

Narcissism: Extremely high levels of self-esteem – some research suggest insecurities are high but more research suggest that narcissists just have high-self esteem.
Narcissists can become aggressive in the face of criticism

Question 33

What are the implications for therapy in regards to how we present ourselves to others?

Answer 33

People should engage in positive self-presentations
Reinforced by the therapist
People should therefore withhold information that undermines a positive impression
Controversial, but good evidence that self-disclosures are sometimes detrimental to recovery

Question 34

What are the motivations that influence social cognition?

Answer 34

To find out more about a topic
To protect or enhance self-esteem
To ensure cognitive consistency
To feel that we are in control of the world in which we live

Question 35

What is self assessment?

Answer 35

We are motivated to know objectively and accurately who we are
Certainty of our abilities and performance in particular situations

Question 36

What is self enhancement?

Answer 36

Seek positive views about yourself and also seek ways to change the negative views about yourself
Evaluate yourself more favourably
Self serving attribution bias
‘Behavioural self handicapping’ failure at a task may believe the person isn’t good at it, there can be self sabotage, e.g. if you fail a test before the night before you partied hard, you may conclude it was bad preparation and it isn’t that you don’t know the topic well enough to do the test.

Question 37

What is illusion of control?

Answer 37

People like to have control over their lives, and lack of control is associated with anxiety
But we overestimate our degree of control over events
We want to maintain the feeling that we are in control

Question 38

What is self verification ?

Answer 38

Seek opinions from others about yourself, whether they are negative or positive, that verifies the beliefs you have about yourself.
If we find it, we feel assured that our beliefs are consistent with our experience (cognitive consistency)

Question 39

What is the looking glass self?

Answer 39

Created by Symbolic interactionists
We see ourselves from the outside, just like how others see us, this allows individuals to become more attuned to the beliefs and needs of others.

Question 40

How does the sense of self differ between collectivist and individualist cultures?

Answer 40

Individualist cultures: uniqueness, children in these cultures are encouraged to think of themselves as unique, and they focus on the aspects that make them different. The self is individually orientated.
Collectivist: belonging, children in these cultures are encouraged to follow societal norms. The sense of self aligns with group members.
Sometimes people within cultures differ more than cultures differing from each other. It’s important not to overemphasise this difference.

Question 41

What did the cross cultural study find?

Answer 41

Participants wrote down more individual related descriptions such as ‘I am intelligent.’ Whereas participants from China wrote about the self in relation to group members like ‘I am a Christian.’

Question 42

What happens to the self in bicultural individuals?

Answer 42

These people deal with 2 cultures at once. Chinese/American individuals would change their behaviour depending on whether they were shown Western or Asian cues. Bicultural people have higher self esteem and better wellbeing.

Question 43

What is priming?

Answer 43

Used in the multiple role theory
Priming can effect mood and is when a stimuli can create a mental representation of a concept

Question 44

What is the true self?

Answer 44

Who that individual is deep down, some schemas are just for ‘show’

Question 45

What is private self awareness and public self awareness?

Answer 45

Private self awareness: aware of the private and personal aspects of the self
Public self awareness: becomes aware of the public and how they might be viewed

Question 46

What are self schemas?

Answer 46

Different dimensions of the self, some schemas are more important to people than others.
Self schemas can help us to determine our thought, feelings and behaviours in specific contexts.
self schematic: an important trait to them
self aschematic: not an important trait to them

e.g. extroverts being on their own, they won’t be happy as it won’t fit their self schema.

Question 47

What is the self serving attribution bias?

Answer 47

When people attribute their successes to internal forces and the failures to external forces

Question 48

What is impression management?

Answer 48

Influencing how others see you

Question 49

What is self monitoring?

Answer 49

Controlling how much you present yourself based on people and situations

Question 50

What are the motivations that cause self presentation?

Answer 50

To be seen as competent​
To be liked​
To make people think we are dangerous​
To be seen as morally respectable​
To be seen as helpless and in need of sympathy

Question 51

What is mortality salience?

Answer 51

Death is inevitable and this causes anxiety
People who have high self-esteem are less affected by mortality salience manipulations

Question 52

What is implicit self esteem?

Answer 52

evaluate themselves in an spontaneous and unconscious manner

Question 53

What is a spurious correlation?

Answer 53

statistical relationship between two variables that appear to be casual but isn’t

Question 54

What did the study on private self awareness find?

Answer 54

Being in front of the mirror makes us more privately aware so we are more likely to adhere to our attitudes rather than change them Schneier and Carver 1980

Question 55

What is publication bias?

Answer 55

Selective publication of research based on their results

Question 56

What is a meta analysis?

Answer 56

combines many results from multiple statistical tests, which are used to drawn specific conclusions

Question 57

What does a discrepancy between the actual and ought self lead to?

Answer 57

agitation

Question 58

What does a discrepancy between the actual and ideal self lead to?

Answer 58

dejection

Question 59

What is self regulation?

Answer 59

Match the standard between the ideal or ought standard of self