WEEK 1 – Socio-Cognition and the self Flashcards
Psychology is less than 150 years old
• Early psychologists such as Wundt highlighted the importance of cognitive processes in psychology using introspection – subjective experience of the person
o But … no observable data and impossible to replicate their experiments
• Behaviourism shift – strong emphasis on behaviour on person or animal – producing replicable findings.
1930s – where psychological process a result of the war?
- Effects of the war where not the same for Americans, British or French although they do have the same cognitive processes.
- Behaviour was limited because there wasn’t a reason for these processes and behaviours.
- Attitudes, stereotypes, prejudice, ‘scapegoat’ group – processes that social disciplines such as psychology needs to explain.
Socio Cognition - How do people make sense of themselves and others?
Fiske and Taylor 2008, social cognition involves: mentalism, cognitive processes in social settings, cross fertilization, real world social issues
• The way people select, interpret, remember, and use social information to make judgements and decisions. - SIRJD
• We don’t generally accept information as facts, we process and change information depending on our social background and experience
• Social cognition concerns the interaction of cognition with the social world.
Features in SC
- Mentalism: SC involves cognition and cognitive processes. Memory, learning, perception, encoding…
- Social settings: The context in which we process information has an effect on the result (and the process itself)
- Cross fertilization: SC recognises that cognitive processes affect the understanding of the social context AND that the social context changes individual processes
- Real-world social issues: Psychology is more relevant for other sciences and society as a whole
Levels of explanation – slice psychological processes into layers Doise 1980
- Intrapersonal – phenomena ‘inside’ the individual e.g. aggression from the point of view of internal processes
- Interpersonal – phenomena between individuals at given situations (between 2 individuals) - social influence
- Intragroup/ positional – interaction between individuals talking into consideration the situation – e.g. within a group
- Intergroup/ ideological – interaction between individuals (or groups) taking into consideration the role of social beliefs, norms, culture and relationships between groups.
SC takes advantage of these levels, allowing researchers to investigate phenomena across levels
- Processes at one level influence other levels
- The explanations proposed are more complete
- SC is into a theory, it is a point of view from which we analyse individuals’ phenomena, social phenomena and their interactions
In psychology what are the 3 components of the self?
- Physical self (the person you are) – even this is complex because who you are may not depend on you
- Social self (the social roles you have). Mainly dictated by the expectations of others
- Active agent (The decisions you make and the behaviours you have). Interaction between what you want and what is expected by others
Self concept
The self-concept is the sum total of a person’s beliefs (i.e., cognitions) about their own personal attributes.
- These beliefs can be about affect, behaviour, cognitions, and motive.
Schema
What you believe about me is a schema…
• Schema: Cognitive structure that represents knowledge about a concept or type of stimulus
• Self-schema: A set of well-elaborated knowledge about the self that guides the process of self-relevant information
We organise information based on what we are (the self-concept) and create a self-schema
We all have a complex self-formed by a number of elaborated schemas
There are 3 types of self-awareness (Sedikides & Skowronski, 2000)
- Subjective self-awareness. A differentiation between the physical world and the self. Most animals have subjective self-awareness.6
- Objective self-awareness. This is the ability of perceive the self as an object, or to have the self as the object of attention.
- Symbolic self-awareness. Ability to form abstract representations of the self
Self awareness
o Self-awareness develops around 18 months of age o Brooks (1978) suggests that babies of 9 and 12 months do not recognise themselves in front of a mirror, while 18-month-old babies do o Some people claim that social interaction is key for this development
Gallup (1977) studied primates to investigate self-awareness. The rough test is still used today – orangutang noticed mark on his head, more aware than expected. – can only recognise themselves if raised in groups.
Theory of mind
can understand that my thoughts /sense of self is different from everyone else. - Self recognition can demonstrate this.
Consequences of self awareness
- According to self-awareness theory (Duval & Wicklund, 1972) when we focus on ourselves, we compare our current behaviour against standards and values
- At the same time, we all try to maintain a positive, stable self-concept; as well as a positive evaluation about ourselves.
- Comparing the self can be an unpleasant process.
- Baumeister (1991) proposed that destructive behaviours are a way to ‘escape the self’
Self-concept maintenance – we compare ourselves against one of three things
Self-concept maintenance – we compare ourselves against one of three things
• The self as it should be…
o Theory of self-regulation (Carver & Scheier, 1981, 1998).
o Self-discrepancy theory (Higgins, 1987)
• Another individuals
o Social comparison theory (Festinger, 1954)
o Self-evaluation maintenance model (Tesser, 1988)
• Another group
o Social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979)
Theory of self-regulation
Carver and Scheier proposed that using self-awareness we evaluate if we are meeting our goals.
• We compare the self against public standards (in the case of public self-aware people; e.g., family or significant others), or private standards (in the case of private self-aware people; e.g., values).
• If we do not meet our goals, it produces unpleasant self- awareness…
• We change our behaviour to match the standards we are comparing against… the main aim is to reduce unpleasant self-awareness.
Higgins – proposed 3 types of self schema - Self-discrepancy theory
• Actual self – how we currently are, Ideal self – how we we would like to be based on personal preferences, ought self – how we think we should be
- Large discrepancies between actual self and ought/ideal self-motivate change.
- Failure to reduce discrepancy can lead to negative emotions – which motivate people to change
- Failure to meet standards is not usually associated with positive changes in behaviour – sometimes the opposite.
Social comparison theory – Festinger
- In most situations there is no accurate way to estimate how we perform so we use others to assess our performance
- Compare performances against someone who is better (upward comparison)/ someone who is worse (downward comparison). – compare to those similar
- Compare ‘upwards’ if we feel we have similarities with the target – can achieve its position
- Most often we compare downwards – protects our self-concept.
2 more aspects added to Festinger’s theory
- Assimilation: if we compare to someone better – obtain the same status – by being physically close to target, having similar attributes, by the salience of the connection with the target
- Contrast: depending on how extreme differences with the target are – we reduce the personal relevance of the attributes we share with the target, focus on the salience of the individual self.
Self-evaluation maintenance model - Tesser
What do we do if we have no one to compare but someone who is better than us?
• Tesser proposes that we can protect our self-concept using self-reflection.
o Self-reflection. Is when we derived our positive self-evaluation by the accomplishments of those who are close to us.
o The comparison domain must NOT be relevant to the self The person must be sure of his/her capabilities
o But what happens if the domain IS relevant AND the person is not sure about his/her capabilities?
• Four strategies to boost self-concept: exaggerate the ability of the target, change the target, distance from the target, devaluate the dimension of comparison.
Social identity theory
• The self of the person can be linked to the self of the groups he or she belongs to, creating a social identity
• Self-schemas are complex and only those who are important and relevant (salient) in a particular situation will be active.
• The salience of the self depends on the context
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Self-categorisation theory
proposes that when a social identity of an individual becomes salient, the self is defined based on the norms of the group.
• We can maintain a positive self-concept based on the membership to different groups.
• If the self of the group is close to the self of the individual, then a positive performance of the group can lead to a positive view of the individual self.
Self-regulation applications
• Eating behaviours – the way and number of times we eat is regulated by social rules
o The amount and times we eat are regulated by us and social rules
• Body image – the ideal body standards is regulated by us and societies
o Aspects of attractiveness and social requirements are regulated separately by gender
o Think about who is the regulator: people in the gym, personal standards of fitting into certain clothes
• Organisational behaviour – roles we perform are heavily regulated by organisations, values and social interactions
o Acceptance of leadership is based on expectations
o The same norm do not apply to everyone
o The norms change – what was once great now is not.
