The Self

Question 1

Definition of the self?

Answer 1

• anchor/lens for how we perceive and view the world
• everything is seen as a reflection of ourselves
• will evaluate an idea more positively if it’s own idea compared, people close to us are evaluated more positively than strangers also

Question 2

Difference between internal and external parts of the self?

Answer 2

• things that are internal to the self tend to be evaluated and experienced more positively
• things that are external tend to be evaluated more negatively

Question 3

What are the ‘me’ and ‘I’ elements?

Answer 3

• me is the knowledge that you have about yourself, the self-concept
• I refers to the fact that you can be reflexively aware of yourself, can make conclusions about own self

Question 4

What are the ways that people describe themselves?

Answer 4

• personal self (unique personal attributes)
• relational self (social roles and social groupings)
• collective self (social categories)

Question 5

Definition of individualist culture?

Answer 5

-oriented towards personal attributes

Question 6

Definition of collectivist culture?

Answer 6

-oriented towards social roles

Question 7

Ross, Xun and Wilson

different cultures

Answer 7

• activating different cultures changes how people describe themselves
• when approached in English they tended to emphasise personal qualities more than social, presented self that conformed to western cultural values and the individualist self
• when approached in Chinese they mentioned more social roles they mentioned more social roles
• self-description became more consistent with what the language cued about themselves

Question 8

What does the social comparison theory argue?

Answer 8

• we can’t measure things objectively
• when there’s no objective criteria of knowing something then we look for cues about what’s correct, how to judge things

Question 9

When do we compare ourselves with people?

Answer 9

• when standards are unclear or ambiguous we look to the social world for answers
• when we don’t know the correct level of performance or what good level of performance represents

Question 10

Who do we compare ourselves to?

Answer 10

• people we think we are similar to, if they’re good at something then we should be too etc
• serves self-evaluation motives
• sometimes we compare ourselves with dissimilar others as it can satisfy the need for self-improvement
• who we look to depends on our situation and motives

Question 11

How do we protect ourselves against unwanted comparisons?

Answer 11

• disengaging from that domain of comparison, distancing themselves by saying it’s an unimportant domain of themselves
• can also draw on these multiple aspects of their self to maintain an overall positive self-image

Question 12

Swann et al

enhancement vs verification

Answer 12

• had participants be with 3 people who provided feedback about known best and worst attributes
• then had to decide who to interact with again
• had to choose between enhancing and non-enhancing feedback (both verifying), between verifying and non-verifying (both enhancing), between non-enhancing but verifying and non-verifying but enhancing feedback
• in the verifying condition most participants preferred who gave them positive enhancing feedback
• in the enhancing condition they preferred those who gave them verifying and positive feedback
• in the final condition they chose to interact with the person that said not nice things but things that they believed to be true about themselves
• suggests we want to feel understood but also approved of

Question 13

Is high self-esteem a good thing or a bad thing?

Answer 13

• generally having positive views of one’s self leads to higher happiness and well-being
• having an inflated self-esteem may be counterproductive and may disrupt effective functioning, may lead them to overestimate their abilities and then over-commit themselves and thus making poor decisions

Question 14

Baumeister et al (1993)

negatives of high self-esteem

Answer 14

• argued that the tendency to overcommit in high self-esteem individuals is pronounced when their self-esteem is under threat
• participants had to perform a task that involved skills (computer game)
• played 10 times till they reached a standard and told they could clearly play the game and given £3 as a prize
• could then bet on their performance and win if it’s at a certain level
• some were in a condition where their ego was depleted and a control condition
• there wasn’t much difference in the control condition but in the ego threat condition those with high self-esteem bet much more money than those with low
• in the control condition those with high self-esteem won more than those with low
• those with high self-esteem had their performance dropped once their ego was threatened and didn’t win as much money