Topic 15: The Self Flashcards
What are the levels of self awareness?
Subjective
Objective
Symbolic
What is subjective self awareness?
The capacity to distinguish self and the environment.
What is Objective self awareness?
The cognitive capacity to become the object of one’s own attention and to be aware of one’s own state of mind.
What is symbolic self awareness?
Capacity to represent the self through language, communicate self to others, set future goals for self, perform goal guided behaviours, evaluate outcomes of those behaviours.
What is the mirror test?
A test to assess is we have a sense of self.
Humans, elephants, dolphins aware that image in mirror is ‘me’. - pass the test.
Apes, not monkeys pass the test.
What type of self awareness do only humans have?
Symbolic
- Only present in humans because it solved specific adaptive problems that humans faced:
- Ecological/technological: hunting, using tools
- Social: group living and cooperation.
What can make people more cooperative?
Increased self-consciousness through seeing one’s mirror image. - makes people more prosocial and honest.
Staring eyes makes people more honest - watching eye effect.
Why can too much self-consciousness be bad for you?
If self consciousness heightens your awareness of how you are seen by others (making your flaws salient), being overly self conscious for extended periods may be psychologically detrimental.
Chronically heightened self consciousness linked to anxiety.
In which cultures is self consciousness typically seen?
In more collectivist cultures where people are especially concerned with social approval and reputation.
people living in such cultures may be chronically self conscious and thus, not influenced by the mirror manipulation.
- North American students viewing a mirror were less likely to cheat, Japanese students were unaffected.
What is self-esteem?
Refers to one’s overall evaluation of one’s worth.
How is self esteem generally measured?
Researchers typically ask participants to fill out a self-esteem questionnaire such as the Rosenberg self esteem scale.
What is the self serving bias?
people tend to take credit for their successes but downplay responsibility for their failures.
What is narcissism?
a grandiose view of the self, combined with a tendency to seek admiration from and exploit others
What is the sociometer theory?
For ancestral humans, social acceptance was a matter of life and death.
Important to monitor the extent to which you were being accepted.
We evolved to be highly sensitive to whether we are accepted by others, and self-esteem is a subjective gauge of social acceptance.
What is said to be one of the biggest factor that affects self esteem?
Social acceptance
What is self control?
Capacity to regulate thoughts and behaviours in the face of conflict
What are examples of self control?
Inhibiting certain thoughts and behaviours:
- resisting temptations
- delayed gratification - resisting smaller, immediate award for a bigger reward later.
- children resisting their emotional outbursts in public
How is self control measured?
Using self report scales
Is self control a finite resource?
According to some, self control is finite and can be temporarily depleted which leads to ego depletion.
Self control is like muscles in the gym. It needs time to recover after use. If this is true, engaging in self control should reduce self control capacity immediately afterwards.
- chocolate, radish study showed self control capacity was weakened and resisting chocolate was ego depleting.
What do researchers who are skeptical of ego depletion believe?
They believe that the effect of ego depletion may be due to people’s beliefs on willpower.
