The Self Flashcards
What are the 3 main parts of the self
Self knowledge/self concept
The public self/interpersonal self
The agent/executive function
Purpose of self
Gain social acceptance
Playing social roles
Keeping things on track
Self-awareness
Attraction towards the self
Public self awareness
Private self awareness
Involves evaluative comparison with the standard and leads to the change in behaviour
Duval & Wicklund (1972): self awareness theory
Suggest some situations, such as looking in the mirror, leads to self awareness
Self aware people feel bad because they notice any discrepancies between who they are and standards
They can either change by matching the behaviour to the standard, or escape by trying to escape the self awareness state
Self-awareness and behaviour
Self-awareness improves behaviour, enable people to do more socially desirable behaviour
When self-awareness is bad…
They seek escape and usually drink alcohol, some extreme escape can be suicide
The purpose of self awareness
Self regulation to control the self
Adopt the perspective of other people
Manage behaviour in pursuing of goals
Food for thought: eating binge and escape the self (self awareness)
Eating a lot to escape from negative thoughts about the self, to reduce and unpleasant self
Eating can serve as a distraction from negative thoughts about the self
Dieters have high in public self-awareness as they care about what others think about them
Low in self awareness, as they tend to ignore hunger
Dieters are more likely to binge eating and lose awareness of fullness
Where self knowledge comes from: how we know?
Looking outside Looking inside Looking at others Self handicapping Self perception theory Overjustification effects
Looking outside: Looking glass self (Cooley, 1902)
Imagine feedback
The idea that people learn about themselves by imagining how they appear to others
Generalised other (Mead, 1934)
A combination of other peoples views that tells you who and what you are
Hard to give and receive negative comments
Looking inside: introspection
The process by which a person examines the contents of his or her mind and mental states
Limitations of introspection
We may know what we think and feel, but not why because we have duplex mind
Children under 11, parents know them
Nisbett & Wilson (1977) attack on privileged access
People often do not realise how their minds work
Looking at others: social comparison (Festinger, 1954)
Examine the difference between oneself and other person
Upward social comparison
Downward social companison
Upward social comparison
Involving people better than you
Can be inspiring or discouraging you to do better and reach the goal
Downward social comparison
Comparing yourself to people worse off than you
Can make you feel good, as you are better than others
Self perception theory (Bem, 1965)
The theory that people observe their own behaviour to infer推斷 what they are thinking and how they are feeling
Overjustification effect
The tendency for instinct motivation to diminish for activities that have become associated with rewards
Extrinsic motivation would gradually win over intrinsic
Intrinsic motivation
Wanting to perform an activity for its own sake
Extrinsic motivation
Performing an activity that have become associated with rewards
Deci (1971): participants randomly assigned to paid or unpaid group to work on a puzzle
When reward is introduced to the paid group: they spent longer working in the puzzle
When reward is removed, the spending time decreased
This is evidence of overjustification effect, as the extrinsic motivation has replaced intrinsic (play had become work)
Why people seek self knowledge?
Appraisal motive
Self enhancement motive
Consistency motive
Appraisal motive
The simple desire to learn the truth about oneself, whatever it is
Self enhancement motive
The desire to learn favourable or flattering things about the self
Consistency motive
A desire to get feedback that confirms what the person already believes about himself or herself
When motives compete
- self enhancement motive = strongest
- It includes emotional appeal that they feel good about themselves - Consistency motive = second
- As the cognitive appeal - Appraisal motive = the weakest
Self handicapping
Putting obstacles in the way of one’s own performance so that anticipated or possible failure can be blamed on the obstacle instead of on lack of ability
Berglas & Jones (1978): impossible and very easy questions
Questions are based on intelligence
Impossible questions condition: more likely to take a pills that decrease intelligence
So they can blame on the pill
Self and information processing
Self-reference effect
Endowment effect
Self-reference effect
Information bearing on the self is processed more thoroughly and more deeply, and remembered better
Roger et al. (1977): word that describe the self
Participants saw a series of words and were asked a question about each word
Participants were asked to recall the words from the the list, the accuracy was based on which question had been asked that is self related
Information related to the self is more memorable than information related to something besides the self
Endowment effect
Items gain in value to the person who owns them
Everything that is self related is most important and has more effect in the self
The name letter effect - Nuttin (1985)
Self-esteem
How favourably someone evaluate himself or herself
High self-esteem
Have more positive views
Low self-esteem
Absence of strong positive feels rather than having negative views
Research on low self-esteem found
People don’t want to fail
More doubts about the self and uncertain
Focus on self protection instead of self enhancement
More prone to emotional highs and lows
The self esteem myth
Low self-esteem leads to aggression
Baumesister (2000): in fact about aggression is…
People who have high self-esteem are prone to aggression
Positive illusion in normal people
Overestimate good qualities
Underestimate faults
Overestimate control over events
Unrealistically optimistic
Benefits of high self esteem
Initiative
It feels good
Initiative
More willing to approach people and strike up new friendships
More willing to go against other peoples advice and do what they think is best
It feels good
Helps to overcome the bad feelings
Willing to try again harder
Negative of high self-esteem
Narcissism
- tend to be more aggressive & violent
- low level of empathy
Higher prejudice
- more likely to judge
- tend to think their group is better
Why do we even we care about self-esteem?
The sociometer theory
Self-esteem feels good, and because people want to feel good, they want to maintain their self esteem (Terror management)
Sociometer
And measure of desirable one would be to other people
The social side of sex: self esteem & say no to sex
Evidence doesn’t show that high self-esteem helps youngster resist having sex
There is a link between virginity and low self-esteem in men
Women with high self-esteem tend to underestimate the dangers of sex and ignore pregnancy risk
What makes us human
Self-awareness and self-concept
To gain social acceptance and participate in culture
