(Unit 5) -Merging Self and Other Flashcards
No chapter reading
BUILDING INTIMACY
Last time: what initially draws us to a
potential partner?
* Today: How do we move beyond the initial
attraction phase to develop an intimate
relationship?
* One influential perspective: intimacy is
the reciprocal, iterative interplay between
self and other (Gable & Reis, 2006)
THE SELF-CONCEPT
- Self-concept: what we know and believe
about ourselves
– ”Who am I”
– Our attributes, abilities, values, goals
– Descriptive & evaluative components (how
you feel about those attributes) - Where does it come from?
SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM
- Charles Horton Cooley (1902): the looking-glass
self
– Develop self-concept through interactions with
others
1. Imagine how we appear to others (”How do
others see me?”)
2. Interpret others’ reactions (”How do they
judge/evaluate me”?)
3. Develop & revise self-concept based on these
perceptions & judgments
ACTIVE ROLE OF THE INDIVIDUAL
* Not simply passively internalizing interactions with others
* Individual plays active role in selecting & interpreting perceived judgments &
perceptions of others
– Also attempts to manage others’ perceptions through self-presentation
strategies
CLASSROOM EXAMPLE
* “How do my students see me?”
* ”How are they judging the image they have of me?”
– Look to and interpret their reactions—are they nodding, smiling, frowning,
do they look bored, asleep?
* Shapes self-feeling (e.g., pride, mortification) and self-concept (“I’m funny”,
“I’m dull”)
* Pay attention to some reactions and not others
* Discount some reactions and not others
* May not be accurate in my perceptions
SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM
* Overarching thesis: The self is a social
construction, developed & maintained via
inferences from experiences with others
* Sense of self is experienced in relation to
some audience
– Real or imagined
– Specific or generalized
* Imagining reactions of others may be a
conscious or non-conscious process
BALDWIN & HOLMES, 1987
* A study in two ostensibly unrelated parts
* First part: visualization exercise (friend or grandma)
* “Since we have time, would you mind
helping with another study?”
* “We’re trying to figure out what makes
certain written passages more
enjoyable—could you read and rate the
following passages?
* Ps who had previously thought about friends reported the passage being
more enjoyable, pleasurable, & exciting than Ps who had thought about older
relatives
* Private beliefs are tailored for public acceptance—although we may not be
consciously aware of this
SELF-ESTEEM
- Evaluative component of self-concept
– How good or bad do we feel about ourselves - Trait level
– Enduring level of self-regard
– Fairly stable - State level
– Dynamic, changing feelings about the self
– Vary moment to moment - Where do these feelings come from?
SOCIOMETER THEORY (LEARY, 1999)
Self-esteem as a “gauge” to assess the degree of acceptance by others
LEARY ET AL., 1995
* Trait self-esteem strongly correlates with perceptions of acceptance
* Experimental study of “individual and group decision making”
* Exchange description of yourself with other group members, indicate which
group members you want to work with
* Then told they had to work alone either 1) because of random assignment, or
2) because other group members did not choose them (rejection condition)
* Rejected participants felt worse about themselves (inferior, worthless, etc.)
EVALUATION OF PERSONAL
ATTRIBUTES
* Intrapersonal view of self-esteem: private self-valuation
– E.g., ratio of one’s successes to one’s failures (James, 1890)
* Interpersonal view: believing that one possesses certain attributes should only
affect self-esteem to the extent that one considers these attributes to be
judged positively or negatively by other people
MACDONALD ET AL., 2003
* Ps 1) filled out global measure of self-esteem, 2) rated themselves in 5
domains (e.g., physical attractiveness, intelligence, morality), 3) indicated how
important those domains were for social approval or disapproval
* Interaction between self-evaluations & the perceived approval value of the
domain
– How closely your performance in a given domain is tied to your self-esteem
depends on how much you think people around you value that domain
BALDWIN, 1990
20
Phase 1) What research ideas are you thinking about these days?
Phase 2) 2-ms exposure
Approving or disapproving
Phase 3) How good is this idea? How important is it? Etc
When primed with approving face: feel brilliant idea
When primed with disapproving face: feel stupid idea
(idk watch part of lecture)
SELF-EXPANSION MODEL
(ARON & ARON, 1986)
- People are motivated to expand their potential efficacy
– Accrue resources, knowledge, perspectives,
abilities, identities, etc. that make it possible to
achieve future goals - One means to achieve this is close relationships
- In a close relationship, the partner’s identities,
perspectives, skills, & resources become, to some
extent, included in the self - We include:
– Various kinds of resources: - Knowledge: information & skills
- Material assets
- Social assets: family, friends
– Perspectives—seeing the world from a different point of view
– Identity—their traits become seen as your traits
FALLING IN LOVE
(ARON, PARIS, & ARON, 1995)
* Aron, Paris, & Aron, 1995
– Provided assessments of their sense of self in terms of self-esteem, selfefficacy, & spontaneous self-concept (“who are you today”?) every 2 weeks
over 10 week period
* And which significant life events they had experienced
* Those who had fallen in love experienced greater increase in self-concept
(compared to before falling in love & Ps who did not fall in love)
– Also increase in self-efficacy & self-esteem
MASHEK ET AL., 2003
* Evidence that individuals cognitively ”confuse” self & close others
* Phase 1:
– How well does this trait describe…
a) You
b) Partner
c) Stranger (media personality)
– (Rated each trait for one type of target only)
* Phase 2:
28
NEAT
For which target was this word presented?
Self Partner Stranger
RESULTS
* More source confusion between self and
close other (e.g., romantic partner, best
friend)
– Not explainable by familiarity or
similarity—closeness appears to be the
key ingredient
SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE OF
RAPID SELF-EXPANSION
* Recap: self-expansion represents movement towards desired goal (expanded
sense of self and self-efficacy)
* Movement toward desired goal is associated with positive affect
* Not just distance from goal—velocity with which we approach a desired goal
is an important predictor of affective experience (Laurenceau et al., 2005)
* Self-expansion is very rapid in early stages of the relationship—gives rise to
sense of exhilaration (Aron & Aron, 1986)
– Argue that this is the sensation of “falling in love”
UPWARD SPIRAL OF SELF-EXPANSION
* Relationship between self-expansion & positive affect may be reciprocal
* Self-expansion fuels positive affect
* Positive affect, in turn, “broadens” our understanding of the world
(Fredrickson, 2001)
– Fosters curiosity & interest, desire for novelty, increased tendency to
approach & engage with the world
* In longitudinal roommate relationship study, positive affect predicts more
complex understanding of roommate and greater perception of self-other
overlap (Waugh & Fredrickson, 2006)
SLOWING DOWN & INFIDELITY
* Rate of self-expansion slows over
time
* In monogamous relationship, may
begin to look outside relationship if
need for self-expansion is not being
met
* Potential for future self-expansion
negatively predicts susceptibility to
infidelity (Lewandowski & Ackerman,
2006)
SELF-DISCLOSURE
- How does this process unfold?
- Self-disclosure = sharing personal information about the self (Aron et al., 1997)
- Central to development of intimacy
– Intimus (Latin) = ”that which is innermost” - Tend to like those who share personal information with us
- Also tend to like people better after disclosing personal information to them
ARON ET AL., 1997
* Lab-based task for creating feelings of
closeness
* Reciprocal exchange
* 3 sets x 12 questions gradually
escalating in intimacy within & across
sets
RESULTS
* Greater feelings of closeness with partner following disclosure task (relative to
small-talk control)
* Does not matter if
– Dyad was (mis)matched on important attitudes
– Ps expected to like each other
– Getting close was an explicit goal
* No difference between all-women and all-men pairs
SOCIAL PENETRATION THEORY
* Task set up to mirror what naturally happens in
relationships over time
* Social penetration theory: gradually move
from exchanging superficial information to
more intimate information over time
– Breadth & depth of topics both increase, but
breadth increases more quickly
* Balance desires for expansion & connection
with desire to feel safe (approach & avoidance
motives)
RISKS OF SELFDISCLOSURE
* Vangelisti, 1994
– Evaluation (could be judged negatively)
* E.g., excessive disclosure can be seen as
immature or needy (Wortman et al., 1976)
– Maintenance (could disrupt the
relationship)
– Defense (information could be used
against you)
– Communication problems (could be
difficult to talk about)
RESPONSIVENESS
* How do we want our partners to respond once we have made ourselves
vulnerable?
* Reciprocity
* Perceived partner responsiveness—degree to which:
– You believe that your partner understands your situation, emotions, needs,
opinions
– You believe that your partner values, respects, and validates your self
– You believe that your partner acts in ways that care for and support the self
* Key aspect of the development of intimacy
INTIMACY PROCESS MODEL
(see slide 40)
LAURENCEAU ET AL., 1998
* Event-contingent recording (type of experience sampling) studies (1 or 2
weeks)
– Provide information immediately after social interaction
* Perceptions of dating partner’s responsiveness mediated the effect of
personal disclosures and the experience of intimacy
– Disclosure on its own may not be sufficient for development of intimacy
THE SELF & RELATIONSHIPS:
RECIPROCAL INFLUENCES
- Self is not simple result of experiences with others; also plays an important
role in shaping experiences
– Iterative, reciprocal process - Choose what part of self-concept to display
- How do we want to be seen? Driven by two separate motives:
– Self-enhancement
– Self-verification
SELF-VERIFICATION VS.
SELF-ENHANCEMENT
* Want to feel both understood and accepted/cared for
* Self-enhancement motive: drive to be viewed positively
– Recall that satisfied partners perceive partners more positively than
objectively warranted, turn faults into virtues
* Self-verification motive: drive to maintain a coherent self-view
* How to resolve this tension?
- May value partners that combine ”global adoration and specific accuracy”
(Neff & Karney, 2002)
– In study of married couples, wives who had more accurate perceptions of
spouse’s specific traits provided better support; couple less likely to divorce - May prefer enhancement on critically important qualities (e.g., attractiveness)
but verification for less critically important qualities (Swann et al., 2002) - May also wish for partners to understand how you see yourself without
necessarily wanting them to agree (Reis & Patrick, 1996)
SHARED REALITY
- Much research has focused on how relationship partners perceive each other
& their relationship - But partners also develop shared perceptions of the world at large =
generalized shared reality (Rossignac-Milon et al., 2020)
– Through our discussions, we often develop a joint perspective
– We typically share the same thoughts and feelings about things
– Events feel more real when we experience them together
– We often feel like we have created our own reality - Predicts feelings of closeness in the relationship
- Rossignac-Milon et al., 2020:
– Phase 1) Threat to shared reality - “What’s your sensory style?”
- 31.8% or 82.4% match
- Rossignac-Milon et al., 2020:
– Phase 2) Joint decision making task - “Choose a painting to take home”
- Couples high on baseline measure of shared reality respond to experimental
threats to sense of shared reality by engaging in motivated behaviour to
reaffirm their shared reality
– E.g., vocalizing agreement, finishing each other’s ideas, more dyad-specific
references - Contributes to sense of “we-ness” and shared identity
IS THERE SUCH A THING AS BEING
“TOO CLOSE”?
- As many as 57% of dating undergraduates report feeling too close (Mashek &
Sherman, 2004)
– Describe experience as “suffocating”, “smothering”, “overwhelming” - Common theme when looking for what causes these feelings:
– (Real or perceived) threat to personal control - Constrains one’s ability to expand in domains external to the relationship
- “Over-expansion” may lead to sense of exhaustion
- Autonomy = feeling that one’s actions are entirely freely chosen and not
coerced (Knee et al., 2013) - Autonomy associated with more openness & greater well-being (Hodgins et al.,
1996; Reis et al., 2000) - Predicts more constructive & less defensive responses to conflict, more
satisfaction after conflict (Knee et al., 2005)
– Partner’s autonomy also predicts the actor’s satisfaction & decreased
defensiveness - Linked to more effective support provision in close relationships (Hadden et al.,
2014) - In successful relationships, need to balance both relatedness & autonomy needs
