W2: Social Self Flashcards
What are the three components of the self and a self-schema?
Self-Schema: a representation of knowledge about self in general and specific situations derived from past experiences
- Individual Self
- unique talents, abilities, preferences etc. - Collective Self
- members of social groups we belong to (e.g. clubs/organizations) - Relational Self
- identities in specific relationships (e.g. daughter)
What are the sources of self-knowledge?
- Introspection
2. Social Sources (based on the groups you belong to and care about)
How do we obtain our social self?
- Family/other socialization agents
- Situationism
- Culture
- Social Comparison?
How do we obtain our social self through the family?
Reflected Self-Appraisal: beliefs about what others think of our social selves (it may not be actually what they say tho)
What is situationism?
Changes in human behavior are factors of the situation rather than the traits a person possesses. (e.g. trait vs state self)
- Working self-concept: the subset of self-knowledge that is brought to mind in a particular context [e.g. temporarily stored in this particular situation]
- Distinctiveness Hypothesis: We identify what makes us unique in each particular context, and we highlight that in our self-definition.
How does culture contribute to our social self?
- Independent vs interdependent cultures
- independent: self seen as a distinct entity, defined by indiv traits
- interdependent: connected to others - Gender (women more interdependent than men, pay more attention to social cues)
- Education (westernization)
- Power (power allows for autonomy)
- Social Class (upper and lower class)
IGEPS
What is the social comparison theory?
Social Comparison Theory: people compare themselves to others to evaluate their own opinions, abilities and internal states
- Likely to occur when there is (1) no clear objective standard, or (2) if you experience an uncertainty about yourself in a particular domain
- Upward vs Downward Comparison
What is self-esteem, and what types are there?
The positive/negative evaluation or attitude an individual has towards the self.
- Trait self-esteem: an enduring level of regard that is relatively stable
- State self-esteem: current level of regard that is less stable
Why is self-esteem useful?
Self-esteem is an internal measure of how likely other people will like us and include us → if we think of ourselves positively, we are likely to think that others would like us to
- ultimately we want to avoid social exclusion
What is self-esteem derived from?
- Contingencies of self-worth: Self-esteem is contingent on (or rises and falls with) success and failure in domains that are important to their self
- Cultural Differences
How do you protect your self-esteem?
- Self-complexity theory: The tendency to define the self in terms of multiple domains that are relatively distinct from one another
What is self-evaluation, and what are the two types?
We are motivated to evaluate ourselves, and evaluate ourselves positively.
Self-enhancement: People’s desire to maintain, increase, or protect their self-esteem or self-views
Self-Verification: People strive for stable, accurate beliefs about the self (e.g. if you are socially awkward)
How do we self-enhance?
- Making self-serving construals
- Better-than-average” effect: most Westerners tend to report that they are better than average on most traits because they want to rank themselves high in qualities that they value
- This is more likely to occur in ambiguous traits such as kindness - Self-affirmation: After receiving information that threatens the self, people can maintain their self-worth by affirming a valued aspect of themselves unrelated to the threat.
- Bask in the reflected glory of other’s accomplishments: Associating yourself with someone’s accomplishments
- Social comparison: Comparing yourself to others who are worse off than you to make yourself feel better
What is self-regulation?
Processes that people use to initiate, alter, and control their behaviour in the pursuit of goals, including the ability to resist short-term rewards that thwart the attainment of long-term goals
- Self-Discrepancy Theory: actual, ought, ideal (people want to reduce discrepancies between actual and ought self)
What are self-regulation strategies?
- Regulatory focus theory
- promotion focus
- prevention focus - Implementation intentions: specifications of how one will behave to achieve a goal under particular circumstances.
(e. g. what i’m doing now for exams LOL)
- ‘if, then” “cue-behaviour)
