The social self

Question 1

Why are selfies popular?

Answer 1

• A way to tell others about ourselves
• A way to put ourselves in the memory
• Choose how you present yourself

Question 2

Why is there an increased focus on who you are in today’s society?

Answer 2

Because of social media

Question 3

what is Baumeister (1999) definition of the self and what is the problem with it?

Answer 3

• The individuals belief about himself or herself including the person’s attributes
• The problem is that it doesn’t take into account that the self has a very social aspect to it too

Question 4

What’s symbolic interactionism (1934)?

Answer 4

we are defined through our interactions with others

Question 5

What is the looking glass self (Shrauger and Schoeneman, 1979)?

Answer 5

We see ourselves how we think others see it

Question 6

What is there a western focus on to do with the self?

Answer 6

The individual self

Question 7

What is the social identity theory?

Answer 7

• Origins in the work of Henry Tajfel on intergroup relationships
• Tajfel and Turner (1979)
   Social identity – defines the self in terms of group memberships
   Personal identity – defines the self in terms of idiosyncratic traits and close personal relationships
   Personal identity -> social identity -> social categorisation -> distinct social groups -> either (In-group) (Out-group)

Question 8

What’s the contextual self?

Answer 8

people describe themselves differently and behave differently in different contexts (Fazio et al. 1981)
- Representations of self become more or less salient depending on situational factors (Abrams and Hogg 2001)

Question 9

What is the actor observer bias?

Answer 9

• we make ourselves more coherent
• we don’t want to be inconsistent with yourself and your beliefs
• Instead of blaming yourself for an inconsistent behaviour you will blame the environment
• But would attribute other people’s behaviour to their character

Question 10

What’s social identity salience?

Answer 10

• Different aspects of our social selves become more or less salient through the process of social categorisation (different aspects of you come to the forefront when with different groups) and our need to reduce uncertainty
• We look for things like minimal cues to categorize ourselves and others

Question 11

What is the minimal group paradigm?

Answer 11

• Groups were assigned based on arbitrary meaningless criteria (e.g. colour of shoelaces)
• No group interaction or affiliation
• People still assigned resources/ points and show bias with a preference for their group
• People crave being in a group, even when there is very little reason (minimal cues) to be there
  • If you categorize yourself into different groups different versions of the self will be able to come to the forefront in different scenarios

Question 12

What is social self categorization?

Answer 12

• Hogg, 1996
• Situationally accessible -> structural fit -> normative fit (do your behaviours fit in with the group) -> does it reduce uncertainty? (does it give you the category you fit into) -> does it satisfy need for self enhancement

Question 13

Self Schema is a cognitive way we know ourselves. What is this?

Answer 13

the beliefs and ideas people hold about themselves
 Multiple schemas relating to a wide range of contexts (Markus, 1977)
 Working self-concept (in different concepts different self schemas will come to the forefront)

Question 14

What happens with self schema during development?

Answer 14

• Baby doesn’t have a self schema
• By around 18 months – awareness of self (can see themselves in the mirror)
• Around 5-6 produce self statements ‘I’m a good girl’ ‘I like red’
• Around 13 more complex

Question 15

Why is it important to have more than one schema?

Answer 15

So that if one takes a hit (e.g. fail a test) you have other aspects of your personality to fall back on)

Question 16

What’s the Self Discrepancy theory (Higgins, 1987)?

Answer 16

• Actual self (who we are)
• Ideal Self (who we want to be)
• Ought self (who you are expected to be by e.g. your parents – can sometimes be negative
• Discrepancy between actual and ideal self can make you sad or uncomfortable
• Discrepancy between actual and ought self can make you agitated or frustrated

Question 17

The self perception theory (BEM, 1967;1972) is a behavioural way we know ourselves. What is this?

Answer 17

• We define ourselves by making attributions about our own behaviour – ‘we are what we do’
• Behaviours lead to self definition
• The traditional view was that attitudes determine behaviour
• Bem’s theory is that behaviour determines attitudes

Question 18

What is intrinsic motivation?

Answer 18

• internal
• Sense of achievement
• Curiosity
• Interest
• Pride

Question 19

What is extrinsic motivation?

Answer 19

• external
• Money
• Grades
• Career
• Praise
• Exams

Question 20

When may we assume something we do is intrinsically motivated?

Answer 20

If there aren’t a lot of external reasons why we are behaving a certain way we assume it is intrinsically motivated

Question 21

What is the over-justification effect?

Answer 21

• If there is lot’s of extrinsic motivation we will lose our intrinsic motivation
• E.g. when children are rewarded for colouring after they stop being rewarded they no longer want to colour
• Important to remember this and not lose your internal motivation

Question 22

What is Festinger’s (1954) social comparison theory?

Answer 22

• People compare themselves to others to have a benchmark, or yardstick to measure how they are doing
• For many attributes there is no objective standard, we can only compare
• We seek out similar others to validate ourselves. This is how groups are formed
• Upwards social comparison: comparing ourselves to someone who appears to have things better. Can lower self esteem but also motivate
• Downwards social comparison: Elevates our self esteem, defensive strategy, way of self protection.
• If you have a strong self concept you can accept someone slightly better than you

Question 23

What are the problems with social media to do with social comparison?

Answer 23

• Lots of opportunities for social comparison
• Problem is that people may only show the positives in their life so you are not getting an accurate picture
• Constant upwards social comparison
• Downwards social comparison can trigger bullying and trolling – belittles others to make yourself feel like there is a downwards social comparison on social media

Question 24

So how do we know ourselves?

Answer 24

• We form self schemas and maintain them to protect our self esteem
• We have actual, ideal and ought selves and work to resolve discrepancies
• We observe our own behaviour to determine motivation
• We compare ourselves to others

Question 25

What is self-esteem?

Answer 25

• Confidence in ones worth or abilities
• Judgement of the self and attitudes towards the self
• Self esteem predicts many clinical and non clinical outcomes such as academic achievement, depression, criminal behaviour, relational success etc.

Question 26

What are the types of self-esteem?

Answer 26

• Global self-esteem: overall aggregated opinion of oneself at any one time, on a scale between negative and positive
• Domain specific self-esteem relates to one’s self esteem in regard of a particular area
• Trait self-esteem: an individual’s accumulated lifelong perception of social inclusion and exclusion (continuous over time – resistant to change)
• State self-esteem: A perception of changes in one’s level of social inclusion, given a particular setting (can change and take hits)

Question 27

What is domain self-esteem?

Answer 27

• E.g. Good swimmer, good student, good friend
• Ability to have domain self esteem comes about during adolescence
• Necessary to have self esteem about lots of domains in case something takes a hit

Question 28

state self esteem?

Answer 28

momentary emotional reaction to internal and/or external trigger(s) which also involves physical, behavioural, cognitive and psychological reactions

Question 29

What is trait self esteem?

Answer 29

An individuals personality characteristics that are stable of time, for example, he is very anxious, shy or angry. The traits interact with different factors to create many emotional states

Question 30

What is high self-esteem associated with?

Answer 30

• Very much associated with Trait esteem
• Lower self concept confusion and more self knowledge
• Self enhancing orientation and a motivational orientation, whereas lower self esteem is associated with a protective orientation
• Lower anxiety, lower social rejection and exclusion
• Good index of social acceptance a belonging

Question 31

What is the self-enhancement bias?

Answer 31

• We are very good at protecting our own self image
• Greater self-reflection on positive than on negative aspects of self
• Self affirmation theory (Sherman & Cohen, 2006’ Steele, 1988) – we act to affirm positive aspects of oneself (e.g. if one aspect of you is knocked you focus on another area you are good at)

Question 32

How do people protect positive aspects of the self?

Answer 32

• Self serving bias (Zuckerman, 1979) – take credit for success but deny blame for failure
• Forget failure feedback more readily than success or praise (Mischel et al. 1976) – failure feedback may be more painful initially though
• Criticize criticism but accept praise (Kunda, 1990)
• Flaws are human but qualities are rare and distinctive (Campbell, 1986)

Question 33

What are some impression management (getting other’s to view you in a positive light) techniques?

Answer 33

• Self monitoring – carefully controlling how we present ourselves
• Strategic self presentation
   Agree with people’s opinion but make them believe it (forceful agreement and weak disagreement)
   Be selectively modest (sometimes be self deprecating)
   Don’t look too desperate for approval

Question 34

What happens when your self esteem is too high?

Answer 34

• Being accurate is also very beneficial (if you have an inflated self esteem getting knocked back will be hard)
• Individual self esteem tends to vary between moderate and very high, not between low and high (Baumeister et al. 1989)
• Actually lower self-esteem isn’t too bad because sometimes it makes you more realistic
• But a pessimistic outlook can lead to negative outcomes
• Realism is good but we need a positive bias
• A LOT of potentially dangerous people have very high self-esteem (narcissism)

Question 35

What is narcissism?

Answer 35

• Display inflated self of view
• Fragile self esteem
• Pursue attention and power
• Sometimes politicians (e.g. Trump)

Question 36

So how do we maintain our self image?

Answer 36

• Enhance your self esteem, (it’s a good thing) by having different sources of self esteem and using self enhancement, impression management and self presentation
• Self esteem can also be situational
• Too much self esteem is not a great thing – narcissists
• Most of us are pretty good in this area